


Run with Me

by tinseltown



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Attempted Sexual Assault, Drama, F/M, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Kidnapping, Physical Abuse, Romance, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 13:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 119,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4351127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinseltown/pseuds/tinseltown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sophie is afraid of everything in the world, herself most of all. She's content to live in isolation, always looking over her shoulder. Things go awry when a deadly super soldier quite literally drags her into the trip of her nightmares...and lifetime. She's going to go to places she's never gone before and see if she can finally open herself up...to the most unexpected person of all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: New story! Yay! I'm actually really happy where I'm taking this story (I've got big plans for it) so...I hope you guys like what you read and stick around for the ride. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I own no part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Marvel comics. No infringement was intended and no money was made off this story. The only thing I own is my original character, Sophie Duran.

Sophie knew that leaving her house was a mistake. She’d known this fact since she was five-years-old. She’d snuck into her father’s study and put her hands on her father’s computer, the one he’d said she must never go by. He always kept the study locked anyway. But he’d forgotten tonight—he and Sophie’s mother were at yet another benefit and a negligent teenage babysitter was watching (in the loosest definition of the word) Sophie—and Sophie was what people like to affectionately call a “rascal” and not-so-affectionately call a “menace” (usually through gritted teeth).

This meant that Sophie broke rules, made messes, and caused trouble.

She’d clambered onto the large oak desk, sitting right in front of the huge bay window which revealed a stormy black sky outside, lightning flashing and thunder cracking in the sky, and had eagerly turned the computer on with her chubby preschooler finger.

That was when things had gone all wrong.

The computer booted up and it hadn’t looked like the normal computer log-in screen Sophie saw on their family computer in the computer room. Glowing green symbols had flashed on the screen. She’d tilted her head, frowned, and smacked a hand onto the screen. She would forever wonder if she’d triggered something because of her action, or if it had just been chance, or if Fate had been sneering down on her—but lightning crashed through the window and hit the computer at the same time that Sophie touched it. Computers generally do not conduct electricity but Sophie’s body and world lit up like the Fourth of July. The computer exploded, Sophie felt her bones melt and snap, her eyes rolled in her head, her body shook like she was seizing, and there was a sharp stabbing pain in her head. Oh, and the light. Yes, the light. So much light. The world seemed to go up in flames around her.

The baby sitter found Sophie’s body lying in a wreckage of charred oak desk and mangled, melted plastic bits of the computer. Her hair and eyebrows and eyelashes had completely burned off her face and strange purple, white, and red welts and marks covered her entire body.

Screams were heard. Paramedics called. Parents rushed to the hospital.

And somehow Sophie lived.

No one knew how she did it. As far as doctors could tell, she had been directly hit by a full bolt of lightning. She should have been completely fried. Her tiny heart should have stopped. But instead, the marks on her body faded, her hair and eyebrows and eyelashes grew back, and she was left with some beautiful patterns of her veins mapped out on her skin for a while until those too faded.

A verifiable miracle by all accounts.

What made it even more amazing was what Sophie could do after…

Her parents became extremely overprotective. She wasn’t allowed to go anywhere alone. She was escorted everywhere. She was forced to go to a local college (two local colleges, in fact, but that was a long story) so she wouldn’t have to move far away from her parents. She had almost no friends and everything about the outside world frightened her. But when she was 21 and graduated college, she’d finally had enough. Heart racing, hands trembling, she firmly told her parents goodbye and promptly moved to a new apartment…across town. (There was only so much independence she could take in one dose. Baby steps, she figured.)

Her parents tried to insist on paying for a nicer apartment but Sophie was determined to do _something_ on her own. She made next to no money working at a local coffee shop and at a Home Depot but it was enough to pay for her shabby apartment, food, and the clothes on her back. So she was okay.

Even if going outside made her nervous. And lightning made her nervous. And technology made her nervous.

A lot of things made Sophie Duran nervous.

“I should buy my own car,” she told herself firmly as she straddled her bicycle and headed for the local grocery market. “Yes. I will save up and buy myself a car.”

Sophie knew she was never going to buy herself a car. They frightened her. Too much risk.

Teetering precariously on her way home, peering over the brown bag of groceries balanced carefully on her handlebars (she’d perfected this system a few months ago), she slowly pedaled home, enjoying the summer evening. Washington D.C. could be unbearably hot in the summer but it was still late May; they had time still before the oppressive heat arrived. Aside from going to the work and to the library, this was the extent of Sophie venturing out into the real world. She still didn’t know anyone in her neighborhood and she didn’t care to. She kept to herself. It was safer that way.

It wasn’t that people didn’t try to get to know her. Her coworkers at Home Depot had long given up on trying to befriend her but guys regularly tried to hit on her at the coffee shop. Sophie didn’t even know how to deflect them. She just withdrew until they went away.

It wasn’t that Sophie was a complete coward. She had a spark in her, a liveliness, a curiosity, a playfulness…but she smothered them well. Life experience had taught her many times that she got into trouble when she allowed herself to be more open.

And on this fine day, she was so lost in thought as she pedaled that she crashed right into a lamppost. She fell off her bike with a thud and a cry and groceries spilled in every direction. Groaning, she picked herself up and then set about picking up all the potatoes and tomatoes which were making their escape from her. Riding a bike while trying to think was a deadly combination.

* * *

 

Little did Sophie know, she was being watched. The man crouched on a rooftop nearby, so still that had someone seen him, they might have wondered if he was stone. A black mask covered most of his face and black goggles covered the rest. He was outfitted in full combat gear—black, natch—and most alarmingly of all, had a metal arm which carried a gun which was most definitely not legal within the United States.

And he was watching Sophie.

His mind rocketed off of its every surface while remaining curiously blank all at once. This was how it was. Every possibility, every piece of stimuli ricocheting around in his mind even while he stared and thought of…well, really nothing at all.

Except for the target. This girl.

This time, he _did_ vaguely wonder. It was the vaguest of wonders, an itch in his mind really, but it was there: why did Hydra need _him_ to take out this little fool? He’d just watched her single-handedly ride her bicycle straight into a pole. With absolutely no one around her for her to even blame for the accident. The sidewalk was empty and clear, she’d had more than enough room, and she had plowed right into the pole. He almost hadn’t believed what he’d seen.

And then, as if that hadn’t been enough, she’d gotten up to gather her belongings—and had tripped. Over _nothing_. She moved as if someone had cut her muscles. _This_ weak, distasteful creature…was his target.

However, she was his mission and he always completed his missions— _always_. There was nothing that could stop him from completing his mission. So if Hydra needed him to take this girl away—“Stealthily, quietly,” were the orders. “No fights or scenes. No one should notice,”—and hold her somewhere for reasons unknown and unimportant to him…then he would do it. There was no need to ask questions; that wasn’t his job or his place. The questions existed, of course. Without them, he would not be as efficient as he was. He was constantly questioning—but he was constantly quelling as well, stomping out questions that didn’t help him finish his mission in any way. And he _always_ completed his missions. As he would this time, if Hydra wanted him to…

Of course he would. He was the Winter Soldier. And he was colder and deadlier than ice.

* * *

 

There wasn’t much Sophie liked to do beyond read and cook or bake. None of those required friends which was exactly why she loved them. Did it get lonely sometimes? Yes. In fact…it was lonely most of the time. But she was in self-imposed exile and loneliness is a little more bearable when you force it upon yourself rather than having it forced upon you. This is what Sophie tried to convince herself anyway.

As soon as she entered through her apartment door, she got her usual weekly Friday night call from her mother. This was how dependable (some with say _lame_ ) Sophie was: her busy, socialite mother knew exactly what time she’d be home on a Friday so she could call Sophie on her landline.

Yes, Sophie had a landline. She might have been the only 23-year-old in the city to do so.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Sophie. What are you doing tonight?” Her mother never wasted time with formalities.

“Nothing much. Baking some cookies.”

There was a pained silence on the other end and Sophie waited, knowing exactly what was coming next. It always started slow. “Baking cookies? How…nice. You bake the most marvelous cookies.”

How her mother had the ability to make this proclamation, never having actually had one of Sophie’s cookies, Sophie didn’t know.

“But you do that every weekend, dear. Why don’t you go out tonight?”

 _People_ , Sophie thought with a shudder. Unpredictable people who could turn on you at a moment’s notice.

“No thank you,” she said politely, setting a pot boiling on the stove for some tea.

“Sophie.” Her mother’s voice turned severe—also expected. This was how their conversations always went. “This isn’t healthy, shutting yourself in like some…like some sort of recluse!”

 _She’s one to talk_ , Sophie thought to herself, _after she had me shut away my whole childhood._

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she said. The response didn’t make any sense but it was the only one she ever gave for being such a disappointment to her social mother. Moira Duran would never understand how such a busy and social woman such as she, with such impeccable taste in all things, managed to produce a daughter so…wallflower-ish and unambitious. Sophie was pretty and had a college degree (though it was in English, something her mother considered useless) but she never went out, never chaired any committees, never dated any boys… What was the use in having a daughter one couldn’t show off? Moira certainly didn’t know.

“You’re so young—and so pretty—Clarissa Walden’s daughter is attending law school and she just got _engaged_ and—well, never mind the law school, heaven knows I don’t need _another_ person in this house who can’t stop arguing, and besides, Clarissa’s daughter runs her mouth a little too much if you ask me”—and no ever really did ask Moira Duran, but that never stopped her from giving her opinion anyway—“but still, _engaged_ , you know! Wouldn’t that be nice if you went out and met some nice man? I must show you Katie’s ring, however, it’s so tacky, I can’t fathom how a boy from such a good family picked something so ugly—”

Sophie _mmm_ ’d and _hmmm_ ’d and _uh huh_ ’d in all the right places, throwing a tea bag into the tea kettle when the water began bubbling, and when her mother had gossiped until her heart was satisfied, she said, “Okay, I really have to go now, Mom!”

“So you’re—you’re sure you’re going to stay in tonight?” her mother asked.

“Yep,” Sophie said cheerfully. “Maybe next weekend I’ll do something.”

They both knew that was a lie but they both pretended to believe it for their sake. Sophie said goodbye to her mother and hung up the phone. She poured herself a cup of tea, added some evaporated milk and sugar, and sat down at her tiny kitchen table. She looked thoughtfully out the window at the violet evening sky. Summer could be so beautiful…but she was missing something. She frowned for a few minutes, thinking hard to herself.

 _Oh, that’s right—my book_. She’d just started the new Dan Brown. She knew his books were cliché and cheesy and formulaic but she had a weakness for exactly those type of action books. The action she’d never be able to live out in real life could at _least_ be lived out on the page, no matter how inconceivable it be that ancient Byzantium treasures were hidden under Washington D.C. by an ancient and secret sect of men and women who worshipped the Norse gods.

Or, at least, that’s what Sophie strongly suspected was happening. She was just about to find out.

She got up and headed into her small, dark bedroom, fumbling to turn on the bedside lamp to find her book. The small golden light flicked on and she searched her nightstand and her bed for it, shaking her blankets. It took her a solid moment to get the eerie feeling of being watched and she froze.

She was bent over the bed, holding the blankets and looking down at the mattress—but a horrible curling sensation in her stomach was telling her that there was someone standing _right there on the other side of the bed looking at her_. Suddenly she was trapped in a familiar nightmare from her childhood where she knew the bad, ugly thing was close by but perhaps if she didn’t _look_ at it, perhaps it would just go away and not exist—

Heart pounding, mouth gone dry as ash, she ignored the impulse to dive into bed and draw the covers over her head— _That will make the scary monster go away!_ —and slowly looked up.

Her heart plunged. There, on the other side of her bed, stood a figure. Sophie had never been in a situation like this before and now that she was in one, her brain began throwing random facts at her like punches, while she stood frozen. Tall. Muscular. Male. Dark silhouette. Still. Danger. Run. Now. _GO!_

Her trembling legs finally catching up with her mind, she spun and raced out the door, desperately running for the front door which was only about fifteen feet away. The apartment was quite small.

It was almost hilarious how little she had a chance of reaching it. She would have laughed if she hadn’t been about to vomit from fear. She heard pursuit behind her, still oddly _silent_ pursuit, something whistling overhead, and then _WHAM_. With a sudden crash, he had leaped over her and landed in front of her, his feet hitting the ground so hard they…made craters in the ground?

Sophie stared at the floor, the ground tilting sickeningly beneath her feet, feeling almost delirious. “Wha—?” she said before the man—she saw he had a full black face mask with goggles on—grabbed her. For a few seconds, Sophie had no idea what was going on. She tilted forward, as if still trying to escape, but her legs had turned to liquid and weren’t holding her up. Meanwhile, his grip was tightening and he was hauling her away from the door, back, back, up, up, and—

He threw her over his shoulder, her head hitting his back _hard_ , and the world spun sickeningly around her as she slowly blinked and tried to comprehend the rising feeling of burning and panic in both her mind and gut. She was vaguely aware of a ringing in her ears, a blurriness to her vision… He was walking now… He was going somewhere—no, he was… _taking_ her somewhere…?

 _I’m being kidnapped._ The thought suddenly slapped Sophie in the face, clearing her hazy, fading mind up. She opened her mouth to violently scream for help but she noticed that the man was quickly moving _up_ the stairwell of the apartment and was struck silent. He was moving quickly, racing up the stairs. Was he heading to the roof of the building? If she screamed now, chances were that no one would be able or willing to help her in time—Sophie knew from experience how awful the bystander effect could be—and then she’d be alone on the isolated roof with this very angry, very fast, very strong man.

No—she was going to pretend to be unconscious. His guard was down right now. And then as soon as he got down to the ground and she got the chance, she was going to get away from him and run like hell. Sophie had no idea how to defend herself from harm but her instinct for self-preservation was the reason she was still alive and well to this day.

He burst onto the roof, jostling her slightly to a better position over his shoulder (her gut was beginning to ache from being held at such an awkward angle over him; the metal buckles and leather straps of his vest were digging into her stomach and legs), his right arm wrapped tightly around her dangling legs. How on Earth did he plan on taking her somewhere while carrying her like this? It was the furthest thing from inconspicuous. And why had he gone _up_ instead of down to some waiting van, as a normal kidnapper would do?

Sophie received her answer very soon. The man suddenly broke into a sudden burst of speed, sprinting across the roof, and she realized too late what he was planning on doing: _jumping_ from the rooftop. She abandoned her plan immediately in favor of screaming her lungs out but before she could even draw breath, he’d hurtled off the roof’s edge with a powerful, flying leap— _OH MY GOD, HE JUST JUMPED OFF OF A ROOF WITH ME!_ —and then he landed with a resounding thud on another, shorter rooftop quite a ways from Sophie’s apartment building.

She had no idea how to react—he had just done something no human should have been able to do—so she hung there, staring at the world upside down, feeling bile rising in her throat. Frozen. Speechless. He hadn’t even said one word to her (though he probably still thought she was passed out) and he hadn’t even tightened his grip on her before he’d jumped…that was how casual he’d been about it. Sophie couldn’t believe that ten minutes ago, she’d been ready to sit down with a cup of tea and a Dan Brown novel. And now her life had turned _into_ a Dan Brown novel.

Before she had time to dazedly think any more, he was taking a running start again— _Oh my god, AGAIN?!_ —and leaped off of this rooftop too. Her stomach lurched as they plummeted three stories to the ground. Her mouth fell open for a scream to rip out _just_ as he landed with an even louder thud in the alleyway beside the building.

 _Okay, he’s on the ground now!_ Sophie realized. _Now’s my chance! Run, Sophie!_

But her legs wouldn’t move.

She was paralyzed with shock and fear. He began walking down the narrow alley and she remained frozen for a few more seconds before she realized that if he made it out of the alley—if he deposited her in whatever vehicle he had waiting somewhere—

She would never be seen or heard from again.

She suddenly screamed and used her left arm to wildly punch him in the neck with all the force she could muster. He jerked back, more out of shock than anything else, and she used his surprise to throw herself forward as hard as she could. She fell out his slack grasp and hit the ground hard. She lay there for a second, wincing, but before she had a chance to stand up, he grabbed the back of her head by her hair and hauled her to her feet. She shrieked in pain, tears springing to her eyes, and fought furiously against his grip in any way she could, lashing out and kicking and just generally acting like a flailing octopus gone mad. If he was going to try and take her, then she would make it as hard for him as possible.

They struggled for a few minutes, she fighting as furiously as she could and he trying to subdue her without killing her. If she got away from this man, Sophie vowed to take every self-defense class in the world. But now, struggling against him, she wasn’t sure that all the self-defense classes in the world would even have helped her against _this_ man. His grip was terrifyingly, alarmingly strong and—her eyes widened as she caught sight of his left arm: gleaming, silver…metal? Did he have a metal arm?!

Before she could do much else, the man suddenly threw her away from him with so much force that she went flying, hitting the ground so hard that the skin on her arms instantly became bloody and scratched and dirty with gravel. She scrambled to her feet, wincing, and then staggered back a safe distance away from him, her arms raised in a pathetic attempt at a shield. However, instead of grabbing her again, he stood there and stared at her. It made Sophie very uncomfortable; she wished she could see his face instead of his goggles and mask. “Wh-what?” she demanded, trying to sound braver than she felt (which wasn’t brave _at all_ ). She wanted to turn and sprint straight to the airport and buy a one-way ticket to Guam—but deadly curiosity made her at least want to know why _her_. She thought she had an idea why but she wanted to confirm it. “That’s it?”

* * *

 

“That’s it?” the girl asked. Her words sounded like a goading taunt, a challenge, but he heard the unfiltered fear trembling in them. Saw her white-as-a-sheet face, her shaking hands, could almost hear her pounding heartbeat and taste the terror that rolled off of her in a sweaty sheen. She was right to be afraid: she was small, untrained, defenseless, and most importantly, she was _human_. She didn’t stand a chance against him. She didn’t even stand a chance of a chance. The slightest bit of common sense should have told her that too. But humans could be so amazingly, stupidly stubborn and he knew she would continue to uselessly struggle against him, making his mission exceedingly annoying…unless he broke her spirit.

It was the only way. It would be a waste of his time—he was nothing if not efficient—but his handlers hadn’t given him a time limit on this mission because they knew he wouldn’t take any more time than he would need. So he had the liberty to do this. Instead of forcibly taking her and her resisting at every turn, which would anger him and put both of them at risk (him at risk for exposure, her at risk for being murdered by him), he was going to allow her to think she had the chance to escape—and then he was going to forcefully, brutally, cruelly show her that there was no chance. There was never a chance. And there never would be a chance. Once she realized this, her spirit would be broken. She would droop. And she would come with him quietly. Humans became very quiet, strange shells when they realized they had no hope. A strange, tight, small part of the back of his mind instinctually told him that he knew this from experience, a part of his mind that dug a sharp claw into the blank chaos of his mind.

Shaking off the tiny pinch in his mind, he squared his shoulders and spoke. “Go.”

* * *

 

The man spoke one word: “Go.”

Sophie jerked back, startled. Not that she’d had much time to ponder what his voice would sound like but _this_ definitely wasn’t it. She’d expected some dark, grizzly voice or a cold, icy, sneering voice—something that definitely screamed _dangerous and evil_. She hadn’t expected…this. His voice sounded like the voice of a normal man—a man in his mid- to late twenties. It sounded far too normal for a figure like him, though it was flat.

“What?” she asked, unsure if she’d heard right.

“You have ten minutes,” he said, his voice monotonous, dying rays of a golden setting sun throwing beams of melting orange across his black mask. His black shadow stretched behind him, fifteen feet tall, dwarfing him.

“You h—I have ten minutes?” she repeated, not understanding. He didn’t respond, merely stood still as stone and stared at her. She stood there, mouth open, staring at him, uncomprehending, but when he didn’t move, it all clicked into place: he was giving her ten minutes to run…before he came for her.

 _He’s playing a game with me._ The thought nauseated Sophie but even more than that, it terrified her. A kidnapper or a killer was one thing—but someone who played with their food before they ate it? That person wasn’t just evil…they were sick and heartless. Empty. She had no chance of reasoning with someone like that.

She turned and ran.

She had no idea where to go. She didn’t have any money on her (though thankfully her small wallet with her license was still tucked into her back pocket…at least someone would be able to identify her corpse). She lived at the furthest bedraggled edges of Washington D.C., next to empty factories and warehouses, far from the noise and crowds. She’d thought that living in an isolated area would keep her safer…she could have laughed and wept at the dark irony of it. She didn’t even know where she was, even though she should have only been one street away from her house, because in her blind panic, she’d run in a random direction away from her apartment building. She kept herself so isolated that she’d never bothered to explore her neighborhood—a big mistake.

The streets were mostly empty. The air was warm but the setting sun made the neighborhood look eerie, casting orange light into dark glass windows, making everything look like it was either on fire or hiding in the shadows. She ran as fast as she could, making random turns every now and then to throw him off her trail, breathing too hard to even cry. Her face felt hot and sweaty, there was a stitch in her side, and her Converse sneakers were hardly the best shoes for running for her life, but still she _ran_. Faster and harder than she ever had in her life.

A sob of hysteria was building in her gut as she ran but she forced it down. It was amazing how few people she was seeing. Was the neighborhood normally this empty? Or had this man just killed everyone in advance, to make the game fun? Sophie knew she was being ludicrous but her mind was suddenly filled with images of bloodstained living rooms and shops of all the buildings and apartments she passed and she cringed to herself. She tripped over her own feet at one point and hit the ground hard, ripping the knees of her yoga pants. Clambering back to her feet, she saw a group of people sitting on a stoop outside an apartment building, talking and laughing. Her heart nearly exploded in relief and she raced in their direction. As she neared them, she realized that although they’d looked like adults from a distance, they were only teenagers. Four of them, three black, one white with ginger hair, wearing loose running shorts and enormous sneakers that looked too big for their feet and tank tops. They all stopped talking and stared at Sophie. She could only imagine what a mess she looked: sweaty and bloody and panicked.

“Hey, you okay?” one of the boys asked, looking bewildered.

“I—” Sophie’s words dried up in her throat. They were only _kids_. They would probably let her inside one of their apartments to use a phone to call the police…an apartment that probably had family members inside…and if the man hunted her down… She could cause the slaughter of a bunch of innocent people.

She turned and ran. She heard the boys shouting after her, one calling “Wait!” but she was gone too quickly for them. She headed down the street, weaving down narrower roads. The neighborhood got rougher as she kept running. Weeds sprung up through cracks in the sidewalk, graffiti covered buildings, and chain link fences enclosed parks and lawns. The cars looked older. She could see golden lights and the blue glow of TV screens flickering inside the tiny houses she passed but she didn’t stop at any house. No one could help her now—she could only help herself.

Had ten minutes passed? She thought it had, though she couldn’t tell. In all honestly, it felt like five hours had passed since she’d been running. The stitch in her side was killing her, she was breathing so heavily she could hardly suck in a breath, and her lungs burned almost icy-cool. The last time she’d run this hard was in high school when she’d been forced to do an extra mile around the school to make up for a missed mile day in gym class.

She made it past the houses and entered the warehouse district. This wasn’t what it was officially called but that was the unofficial term for it: a few blocks of mostly abandoned warehouses and factories. They’d been in production up until the seventies, or perhaps eighties, but then the radical environmentalism revolution had hit in the ’90s and many of them had shut down for no reason other than public furor. Now they were mostly homes for drug addicts and bums, people said. Sophie didn’t know how true that was; she’d never been out here before.

There weren’t even streetlamps in this area. She had a feeling the clock had run out on her ten minutes so she picked the closest building to her—an abandoned, half caved-in factor—and climbed through a hole torn in the chain link fence outside of it. Jogging across the weed-thick grass, she entered the factory through a side door. The hallway was pitch-dark but parts of the roof a few stories above her had fallen in, letting some weak night light. Enough for her to make her way down the hall, at least. She found a set of stairs at the end of the hall and raced up them, her heart nearly exploding in fright as she thought about all the creatures she’d ever read about in Stephen King’s novels and the darkness in the stairwell beneath her…

 _Don’t look back, don’t look back, don’t look back_. Her mouth was dry as ash as she finally made it to the top floor. Her legs felt like jelly now and she was wheezing like someone who’d smoked constantly for forty years. She had to use her shoulder to open the heavy metal door at the top, that was how limp her arms felt, and she forced herself down the dark hall, through a door, and then collapsed in the corner of a small room. A desk and a bookshelf stood in the corner, thick with grime and dust, some books still in the shelf. A window was set behind the desk, smashed in, letting the warm summer air into the room. She huddled closer to herself in the corner, wrapping her arms around her knees and closing her eyes.

 _How is this happening?_ This was the thought that kept circling her mind. She felt like she’d been dumped into some sort of alternate reality. A man with a metal arm. An eerily empty neighborhood. Jumping off of roofs, crushing the ground with his feet… She took a deep shuddering breath, covering her hot, sweaty face with her hands, trying to breathe normally without hyperventilating.

 _I can’t deal with this_ , she thought in despair. _I’m not strong enough for this_. Once upon a time, Sophie had been strong, wild, electric… But slowly her energy had been stamped out of as she grew up. Things had happened, lines had been crossed, backs had been stabbed. And she had realized that she was truly weak, deep down. She didn’t know how to defend herself properly—never had—and when the going got tough, she turned tail and ran. The only brave thing she’d ever done was telling her parents she’d had enough of their protection and walking out on them. And even then, she’d only moved to the other side of the city. Hardly a courageous move.

She squeezed her eyes shut against the images of the man that danced in her mind, burned on the backs of her eyelids. She could feel a terrible, massive headache coming on. She was alone in an abandoned factory in a dangerous fringe of town at night…while being hunted by a psycho. She suddenly regretted not owning a cell phone. What had she been thinking? That she would always be safe from the world’s horrors and would never need to call someone for help?

Although she didn’t really have anyone to call anyway. It was sad but true: Sophie had no close friends. She’d lost contact with her high school friends. She’d completely cut out her friends from the first college. She’d never even _made_ friends at the second college. And her parents were always at events or meetings or spas, not exactly available to come save their daughter from death. Of course, there was always the police, though she wasn’t sure they would have believed a story as wild as hers.

Then again…the world had been a very different place ever since Tony Stark had revealed himself to be Iron Man a few years ago. He had been the first to come out in the open as something other than an average man. After that it seemed that weird people came in a never ending stream: a man who turned into an enormous green monster and destroyed half of Harlem, an alien god from another realm, and Captain America, a super soldier who had apparently been frozen for decades and had _survived_. Sophie wondered if this man was a superhuman or some sort of god from another realm—but even if he was, he definitely wasn’t a hero.

A low moan escaped her and she clapped a hand over her mouth, terrified to make even one sound. She hoped her hiding spot was remote enough that the man wouldn’t be able to find her, but even if he didn’t find her, what _next_? She could go home tomorrow during daylight but he knew where she lived. She couldn’t stay there a minute longer. She could immediately move in with her parents, but he’d surely be able to find her there as well and then her parents would be in danger. And she didn’t have enough money to immediately find a new, cheap apartment.

A sudden idea hit her: a women’s shelter. If she made it to a women’s shelter without him somehow following her or finding her…he would be hard-pressed to find hide nor hair of her. The shelters accepted women without questions and kept them anonymous. No men were allowed in. And she certainly _looked_ abused enough to keep anyone from questioning why an otherwise healthy young woman was hiding out in a shelter. (Not that someone had to look abused to go to a shelter but Sophie knew it would make her blend in better.)

Satisfied that she had a tentative plan for the future, she exhaled and rubbed her eyelids, trying to massage the pain out of them. She would go to a women’s shelter tomorrow. She would call her jobs and quit over the phone. She would catch a bus to some random state and find a job doing literally _anything_. She would find a cheap place to live and spend out the rest of her life in anonymity, earning no money, interacting with no one but books. It would be even more isolated than the life she was already living—but did it really matter? She hadn’t had big hopes for her future for a while now. This didn’t have to ruin her. Sure, it was terrifying and she would always be looking over her shoulder for a man with a metal arm, but—

Something creaked in the room with her.

It was like everything in her turned to ice. Her entire body went still as stone, her heart freezing. She held her breath and her saliva dried up in her mouth. It was almost like she willed her heart to beat more slowly so it wouldn’t sound so _loud_. She pricked her ears, terror rising over her in waves. The creak had come from this room. It could have been anything. It could have been the wind or a mouse or the old, rotting floorboards. It didn’t mean anything. So why did she feel like screaming?

 _Look up, Sophie_. And so she did. The terror was excruciating, ten times more awful than the fear she’d felt in her bedroom. It seemed to take a thousand years for her to lift her head and peek up—

And there he was. All thoughts about screaming died within her chest. It was as if she had swallowed her tongue completely.

He loomed over her, shrouded in darkness and shadows, arms held like iron rods at his sides. She could barely see the gleam of his metal arm, that’s how shadowed the room was. The sun had set by now, leaving the sky a deep blue. She couldn’t move, that’s how paralyzed her muscles were. A constant chorus of _nonononononoNONONONO_ was rising to a hysterical scream in her mind but her mouth wouldn’t open. She could only stare as he walked towards her with slow, mechanical steps. He didn’t say anything or pull out a weapon. He grabbed her arm and yanked to her feet so hard her shoulder erupted in flames. She let out a wail of pain, hand immediately flying to her shoulder. She thought she was going to pass out from pain. She hurt herself regularly but she’d never sustained any _real_ injuries (except for being struck by lightning as a kid).

She thought she might have had composure but as he dragged her towards the door with no regard for the fact that he’d probably just dislocated her shoulder, her hysteria won over. “Please!” she begged. He took no notice and dragged her down the hall. He might have been dragging a bag for all he took notice of her. A body bag because Sophie knew she was as good as dead. Fear overcame her mind in a smoky haze as she realized in horror that _she didn’t want to die_. She hadn’t even lived a life worth living. There were so many things she should have done and so many people she should have made friends with. She’d wasted her 23 years being a fool. And now she was going to die and no one would remember Sophie Duran except for her parents and people she hadn’t spoken to in years.

She’d left no mark on the world.

“Let me go!” she begged. “ _Please_ , let me go!” Tears streamed down her face as he dragged her down the stairs, her left shoulder on fire. “LET ME GO!” Her voice rose to an incoherent scream as he dragged her down several flights of stairs. She didn’t even know what she was saying now; it was a mix of begging for her life, crying for her mother, and pure terror coming out in wordless sounds. When they reached the bottom, he swung her around to face him and then slammed his black glove-clad fist into her face. She was out instantly, hitting the floor with a slight thud.

He picked up her slight form and vanished into the night.

           

           

           


	2. Chapter 2

Sophie’s face hurt. She was aware of this first. Even before she opened her eyes, she could feel the pain. Her lips felt swollen, her cheekbones ached, and she had a massive headache. She lay on the cold hard surface of wherever she was and debated whether she should open her eyes or not. She didn’t want to wake up and see where she was. If she kept her eyes closed…would she drift back off into the darkness and die? She lay limply, eyes closed, trying to breath normally. Thinking. Pondering. He had punched her in the face. Sophie hadn’t been physically hit by someone since primary school. The pain in her left shoulder was growing more and more intense by the second as well. The more she tried to block it out the more painful it got until she felt like she might scream. She didn’t know if she was being babyish—having a dislocated shoulder and being punched in the face were probably very mild assaults compared to what  _could_ have happened—but to a girl who wasn’t used to physical attacks or even people  _touching_ her, they were horrible.

“Wake up.” His voice. It was all she could do not to flinch in shock. She’d been so lost in her own miserable thoughts…and it had been so silent around her…she’d almost forgotten that he was surely near. He sounded like he was across the room. She decided to ignore him and pretend like she was still passed out. This didn’t work out because he spoke again: “I know you’re awake. Get up before I make you get up.”

This made Sophie’s eyes fly wide open. She stared up at the dark ceiling above her. It looked like…some type of  _tin_? Tiny small holes punctured it and bleak, milky gray daylight filtered in through the miniscule holes, barely illuminating the room. She became aware of the overwhelming smell of dirt and rot and slowly sat up, wincing and biting her lip as pain tore through her shoulder and arm. She looked around. They were in some kind of shack with dirt and matted hay on the ground, dark gray tin walls and ceiling with paint flaking off, a rusted door in the corner.  _He_ sat right in front of the door, arms crossed, legs straight out in front of him, staring at her. He still wore his mask and goggles.

Sophie scrambled back into the furthest corner away from him that she could and wildly looked around for something to defend herself with—but there was nothing but hay. Not that she really thought she could have fought against him anyway; he’d proven that he was freakishly strong. She knew know for sure that he wasn’t a normal human. No human could dislocate someone’s shoulder just by yanking them up (unless they were Dwayne Johnson). “Where—” Panic threatened to overwhelm her and she took a few deep, shaky breaths. “Where are we?” It hurt to speak and her lower lip split open as she did. A bead of blood rolled down her chin and she instinctively licked it away, tasting salt and copper.

He was silent.

“Ple— _Please_ ,” Sophie said. “Tell me where we are. Why you took me. Is it money? Is it my family’s money you want? Because I can get you that. There’s no n—you don’t need to do this.” She swallowed. “How much do you want? My dad can pay any amount.”

He was silent.

 _What do I do now_? Sophie thought in despair. He wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t answer any questions… How was she going to learn any information and figure out an escape plan if she didn’t  _know_ anything?

“Can you—”

He interrupted her suddenly, stating, “Your shoulder is dislocated.”

Sophie stared at him incredulously, unsure of what to say. Was he trying to be funny or was he being serious? Of course her shoulder was dislocated—he’d ripped it out of its socket! She looked down at her throbbing shoulder and winced when she saw the redness, the swelling, the newly formed bruises. Her shoulder looked misshapen and out of alignment. She could barely move it now; the pain was too intense. Her head snapped up in alarm when she heard the man stand up and move towards her. She pressed against the wall, panicking, saying, “Wait—wait, what are you doing?” as he advanced upon her.

He didn’t answer, merely strode towards her, knelt near her, and grabbed her arm. All too late, Sophie realized what he was going to do and dread knotted in her stomach. “Wait—” she started in a high-pitched voice but he had already grabbed the back of her head and shoved it down slightly, immobilizing her. He grabbed her dislocated shoulder and then  _snapped_ it back into place.

Sophie let out a scream. She couldn’t help it. A high-pitched wail escaped her mouth as she fell over onto her side, pressing a hand against her burning, throbbing shoulder, sharp stabbing pain radiating down her arm. She balled up her right fist and bit down on it, trying to stop the scream that was rising in her throat. Tears rolled sideways down her face, across the bridge of her nose and into her right ear, soaking the hair on the right side of her face. She lay there, whimpering, while he clunked back to his spot across the shack and sat back down. She had to lay there, shaking, for a good ten minutes before she could regain composure. She slowly sat up, her arm still killing her with pain—but she could move it now. She slowly wiped away her tears with her right hand and pushed her bedraggled hair out of her face. Then she looked up at the man and spoke slowly and carefully, trying to remain calm.

“Listen,” she said. “I’m your—I’m your captive, okay? I’m not going anywhere. We both know that. So can you  _please_ tell me why you took me—or who you are—what is all this? I just need some sort of answers. You just shoved my arm back into its socket; you owe me that much. After that, I—I promise I’ll stop talking.” His head tilted oh-so-slightly to the side, as if tempted by her offer to shut up. Encouraged by this, she quickly said, “I  _promise_ I’ll shut up—if you just—t-tell me why you took me and—”

“You’re my mission,” he stated emotionlessly, cutting her off again.

“Wh-What?” she asked, bewildered. “Your— _mission_? I don’t understand—are you a—are you a—”

“The Winter Soldier,” he said, sounding almost bored.

“Your name is the  _Winter Soldier_? But who do you fi—who do you work for?” When he didn’t answer, her voice became more shrill. “Who do you work for? What do you want? Please, just let me know, and I can—”

“You can shut the hell up.” Sophie flinched in shock at the awful coldness in his voice. Her mouth open but she faltered, at a total loss for what to say. He nodded once and said, “Like that. Speak again and I’ll give you another reason to cry.” She wanted to fly across the room and claw at him, snatch his mask and goggles off and gouge his eyes out—but she was Sophie Duran and she was far too cowardly for that. So she snapped her mouth shut, her heart pounding horribly. She didn’t know much but at least she knew what his name was…the Winter Soldier. It had a scary ring to it. It wasn’t a normal, personal human name…it was a _title_. And soldiers did dangerous things and the winter could be a deadly force of nature, so all in all…

 _I’m doomed. I am totally doomed. I haven’t even been kidnapped by a normal man with a normal name. I’ve been kidnapped by a…superhuman_ thing  _who has a_ title _. A terrifying title._

Sophie turned away from the Winter Soldier, bent over, and threw up. She didn’t have much in her stomach, not having eaten anything since yesterday evening when she’d gotten home—oh, how long ago it all seemed now, though it hadn’t even been a full day since it had happened—and nothing really came out except saliva and bile. She wasn’t even throwing up, she was retching and gagging and dry-heaving. She couldn’t help it. She felt like she was being smothered in her own death. She was alone with a dangerous superhuman freak who was called the  _Winter Soldier_ and had no qualms violently attacking her. He’d dislocated her shoulder, punched her in the face, and had just as violently fixed her shoulder. He would have no issues strangling her if he so wanted.

When she was done, Sophie crawled into a corner and dragged some piles of hay over her. It was pitiful but she wanted to make herself as invisible as possible. She didn’t want to feel his goggle-covered gaze all over her anymore, even though she knew he was still watching her. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and cried. No noise came out of her. No dramatics. Nothing to show him to make him feel sorry for her. She didn’t care about him at all. Hot tears flowed down her cheeks and her mouth was open in a silent cry. Silent sobs wracked her body and she shook with the weight of realizing that she wasn’t going to survive whatever was coming next.

That was where she fell asleep, after crying for god knew how long, her head dropping onto her chest and eventually falling over completely, head hitting the ground. And still the Winter Soldier sat in his corner, arms crossed, staring impassively at her pale, tear-soaked face.

* * *

 

He didn’t mind telling the girl his name. A big part of his persona was staying within the shadows but it wasn’t a  _necessity._ Who was she going to tell anyway? She was as good as dead. She was never escaping from him and when he delivered her to his handlers, she was never escaping them. She was never going to see the real world again.

She was weak. So weak. His stomach curled in disgust as he looked at her slight form curled up on the ground, eyes closed, lower lip bloody. Her breathing was slow and rhythmic; she was actually asleep right now, not pretending as she had been earlier. All she did was cry and whine and ask questions he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer. He would have done anything to make her stop talking and breaking her jaw was out of the question—he had been instructed to bring her back unharmed enough that she could still speak and think normally, though he was allowed to use excessive force if he wanted—so he had given her his name. That would keep her satisfied for some time, at least until he could finish his mission and be rid of her.

Still, a distant part of him recognized that even though she was wildly pathetic, a part of her was brave. This wasn’t him complimenting her; it was pure calculation on his part. It was a part of his mission to make sure every variable was known to him. She was weak but she’d shown a tiny spark of bravery and that could be problematic later on. At the very least, she hadn’t lost control of her bladder or killed herself—yet. He’d dealt with people who’d been so afraid of him, so afraid of what awaited them, that they took their own lives before he could stop them. She wouldn’t have much chance of that out here. There was no gun to put in her mouth, no rope to hang herself with, no blade to slash her wrists with, no building to jump off of. If she wanted to die she would have to wait until they reached their destination.

He looked down at the small black watch that was clipped to his belt. 1600 hours exactly. It was time to go. He was running on a strict self-imposed schedule here. He’d already deviated it from it to play their little hide-and-seek game and his irritation over that was growing with every passing minute. He didn’t like having to deviate from his plans though he adapted to change well.

He stood up, walked over to the girl, and nudged her forcefully in the abdomen with the toe of his combat boot. Not hard enough to rip through her torso—though he could have done that if he wanted to—but hard enough to wake her up. She stirred and groaned but didn’t open her eyes. So he kicked her more forcefully.

* * *

 

Sophie was awoken by a swift kick to her stomach. Her eyes sprang open in surprise and pain and she curled up, instinctively shielding her body with her arms. “Wha—?” she began but her face felt like a mask, tight with dried tears and her swollen lip, and her words got stuck in her throat.

“Up,” he commanded, towering over her.

 _He kicked me to wake me up._ Almost incredulous, Sophie scrambled to her feet, afraid of getting hit again. His favorite method of communicating seemed to be hitting her. For a moment they both stood toe-to-toe and she stared at her feet, unable to look at his face. Slowly she raised her head until she was looking up (he was a head taller than her) at his face—or where his face should have been if he hadn’t been wearing a mask and goggles. A wave of uncharacteristic fury ripped through her.  _Why does he get to see my face if I can’t see his?!_ Her right arm shot out, bent on ripping his mask off, but his reflexes were quicker than hers. He grabbed her arm, twisted her around, shoved her head down, and yanked her arm up and back, twisting it so her palm was facing up and he was gripping her wrist tightly. She let out a cry of pain and he shoved her away from him so hard that she slammed into the thin wall of the shack, hitting her bruised left shoulder. She let out a groan of pain.

“Don’t try that again,” came his flat, mechanical voice—though with a degree of coldness that she hadn’t heard before.

Sophie leaned against the wall, wondering which aching arm to caress first, and looked down at her feet.

“Do you understand?”

She was silent. Perhaps if she stared at the ground with enough intensity, she could laser a hole all the way to the other side of the world and escape this psycho.

He took a threatening step towards her and her knees buckled out of fear. She slid halfway down the wall, her hands flying up instinctively to shield her face, flinching. “Yes! YES!” she shouted. “Just—get away from me! I understand! You…you…” Her chest heaved up and down with terror and rage and she covered her face with her shaking hands. “I understand,” she said in a muffled voice. “I understand.”

There was silence for a moment, and then— “Good. Get moving.”

 _Try to be brave, Sophie_. She took a deep, shaky breath and then undid her hair, shaking it out. He stood in his eerie still way, watching her, waiting, but Sophie tried not to care. This was her one act of defiance—to make him wait a minute before leaving. She stared straight past him to the other wall of the shack as she combed her hands through her hair, slowly neatening it. She saw his human hand twitch at his side and she hurried up the process, suddenly wondering if he meant to strangle her. After she tied her hair up back in a pony, she walked across the shack and yanked the door open, stepping outside.

The sudden light made her squint and flinch for a moment. She shielded her eyes with her hands and gazed around the scenery. What she saw made her stomach drop. They were in the middle of nowhere. Turning to look behind her, she saw that they had been camping in some abandoned shack. All around them were fields with tall wild grass. The ground beneath her feet felt squelchy and she could see the blue of a lake or pond snaking its way through the grass far off in the distance. The sky was slate gray and bleak and the air was oppressively humid. She hadn’t noticed the heat inside the cool, dim shack but out here it was overwhelming, filling her lungs like a thick fluid. This was definitely not Washington D.C. scenery or heat.

“Where are we?” she asked the Winter Soldier, struggling to get a hold of her panic. How would she escape if she didn’t even know where they were?

He ignored her, grabbed her elbow in an iron grip, and began steering her through the fields. They were mostly wet marshlands with shallow ponds and lakes. Sophie’s Converse soon got wet and sloppy with squishy mud and swamp water. At one point, she saw an alligator lazing itself on a bank near a pond and near jumped out of her skin in fright. No, they were definitely not in Washington D.C. anymore. They were obviously somewhere in the Southeast—but which part? South Carolina? Louisiana? Florida?

They traipsed through marshlands for a good hour before they reached a small dirt road upon which a black van sat. He opened the back up and Sophie’s heart sank when she realized he expected her to ride in the back like some kidnapping victim.

Well—not  _like_ a kidnapping victim. Because she actually was a kidnapping victim.

Before she could climb in herself, he picked her up and threw her inside. Not hard enough for it to hurt but none too gently either. She picked herself up, wondering if the rest of her short life was going to be spent being beat up by this man, and before she could react, he clambered in with her and yanked her over to a small seat by the side. He shoved her into the seat and then buckled her into a special harness that actually had a lock and key. He slipped the key into his pocket and then plunked a plastic red bucket next to her. She stared at it, bewildered, but he was out and slamming the doors shut on her before she could ask what the hell he was doing. 

She watched him climb into the driver’s seat and pull on a baggy blue hoodie. He tied his hair back up into a pony and then jammed a black baseball hat onto his head. He pulled a pair of black driving gloves onto both hands, turned the van on, and then they were off, roaring down the road. There were no windows in the back but Sophie was sitting at an angle kitty-corner from him so that he could easily turn to the right and look back at her. She could also sort of see out of the front windshield and out of  _his_ window. However, this required looking at  _him_  and that made Sophie feel nauseous all over again. Suddenly she was a bit thankful for the bucket because she had a feeling she might need it.

She closed her eyes and thought about what might be going on back home. The sad thing was, she wasn’t sure anyone would have noticed her missing yet. She didn’t normally work weekends and her mother had already had her weekly call. There were no friends who would notice her gone. She had no online presence for Twitter and Instagram friends to wonder at her Internet silence. She wouldn’t show up for work on Monday and her boss would be angry but not too worried. Then she wouldn’t show up to either work places all week and they would either fire her or get concerned. The police might be notified. Her parents would realize their daughter hadn’t been to work in a week and wasn’t picking up her phone. With her father’s influence, the police would  _really_ be notified now. Her apartment would be broken into. They would find everything pristine and untouched—even a cup of cold, rotten tea sitting on the table—except for two small craters in the ground where the Winter Soldier had crushed the ground in. No one would be able to figure out what those marks meant…but the fact that everything was left untouched and there was slight destruction in the house…and they would suspect foul play. Daughter of a rich and powerful man, it was only to be expected she might have been kidnapped.

But there hadn’t been a ransom call. Sophie read enough crime books to know that the police gave up a lot of hope if there wasn’t a call within 24 hours. She might be featured on the news but no one knew her or really cared about her. No one would be on the lookout. The police would be doubtful about whether it was really foul play after all. Perhaps she had just run away. People did that sometimes when their life became overwhelming. They would ask, “Was your daughter depressed? Did she ever have any suicidal thoughts?”

Time would pass. There was no real evidence of foul play. No one would see her. The police would gently advise her parents to not have too much hope. And everything would just end there. The end of Sophie Duran, just like that.

She should have slapped all those awful people at the first college when she’d had the chance. She should have used her abilities, made friends, done risky things, if she was only going to get kidnapped in the end anyway.

She had wasted her whole life and she was never going to get it back now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I've written SO much of this story, so I'm really excited about it. It goes to some pretty wild places and it's more adventurous than anything else I've ever written. I've got quite a grand overall plot planned out, so I really hope people get on board with the story! As always, reviews are awesome!

Feeling largely helpless and defeated, Sophie tried to go to sleep. It was her only way of escaping this horrible situation. But the bumping of the car kept jostling her and her mind was consumed with thoughts of how panicked her parents would be once they realized she was missing. She wasn’t very close with her parents but they’d always tried to protect her from harm and discomfort, which she appreciated. It was the best they could do.

They sped through the marshlands at a fast pace. So fast that Sophie dully wondered if he was breaking the speed limit. Of course, a criminal like him probably didn’t care about trivial things such as speed limits—but still, wasn’t he trying to _avoid_ detection? Getting pulled over for speeding seemed like a stupid way to avoid detection. Or perhaps he thought there were no police out here, since they’d passed a maximum of four cars in about two hours. As if someone were reading Sophie’s mind, just then they heard the sharp _whoop whoop_ of a police car behind them, not a chasing wail but a warning bark.

 _Now he’s done it_ , Sophie thought with vicious pleasure. A second later: _Oh my god. This can be my chance to escape! There’s no way he can explain why I’m tied up in the back like this._ The Winter Soldier slowly pulled the car over on the narrow dirt road and waited patiently in his seat. Sophie heard the heavy slam of the police officer’s car door and then a man appeared in the driver’s window of the van. “Sir—” He tapped on the glass. The Winter Soldier rolled the window down and looked at the officer. The policeman seemed confused for a split second by his full face mask. Sophie could almost see the cogs working in his brain. She saw the moment he recognized something was not right dawn in his eyes—but before he could say or do anything, the Winter Soldier had pulled out a gun and shot the officer in the face.

“NO!” Sophie screamed, throwing herself forward with all her might but the harness held tight. The Winter Soldier rolled the window back up, put his gun back in his holster, and resumed driving. “What the hell is wrong with you?!” Sophie screamed. “You just killed an innocent man!” He took no notice of her and she noticed him drum his fingers once on the steering wheel, almost casually. Taking someone’s life hadn’t shaken him at all. He hadn’t even had to think twice about it. He’d just shot the man as if murder was something he did on a routine basis.

 _That’s probably because murder_ is _something he does on a routine basis_ , her mind said with awful sarcasm. Her stomach heaved and she grabbed the plastic bucket, thankful it was around, and gagged into it. Nothing came out because she hadn’t eaten in hours now but bile kept coming up as she thought of the officer’s body…laying there, bleeding…a hole blown in his face… Perhaps he’d had a wife, had had kids, a best friend… Sophie gagged and retched, her eyes watering and nose stinging.

When she was done, she felt limp. She pushed the bucket full of saliva away and closed her eyes, wiping her mouth and nose on her sleeve, not even caring how gross it was. She felt gross, right down to her core. This was all wrong. He had just murdered a man like it was nothing. Sophie didn’t belong to this world. She’d tried her hardest to stay out of trouble. How could she be in this mess?

They drove through the night. Sophie fell asleep again because sleep was her only escape from this nightmare, but it was an uneasy sleep, full of bumps from the road and nightmares and her aching body. She woke up feeling not rested at all. Her head was pounding, her stomach was aching for food, her left shoulder hurt to move, her right arm was sore to the touch, her lips and cheeks still felt bruised, and her abdomen winced in pain where he had kicked her. She was a mess.

She watched through the window as the first rays of dawn rose. They were on a largely empty highway now. He was driving too fast, and she was at too weird of an angle, for her to see any of the signs or exits they passed, but her sharp eyes noted that when they passed a toll way, there was a yellow sun painted onto the top. She recognized this from a trip to Florida she’d taken with her parents as a child: the SunPass toll way system. So they were in Florida. She didn’t think there was a SunPass on their car. The car was probably stolen, so it’s not like he would worry about getting ticketed on this license plate.

 _Sophie, he just murdered a cop. I don’t think he gives a damn about being ticketed at_ all.

She was feeling almost dizzy with hunger and thirst now. She hadn’t had food for over 24 hours now. The last time she’d eaten was her meager lunch at work the day before yesterday. She hadn’t even had a chance to drink her tea. No wonder she hadn’t had to use the bathroom yet. Maybe it was a good thing she wasn’t eating or drinking…she couldn’t imagine trying to tell him that she had to use the bathroom. He’d probably watch her, just to torture her or make sure she didn’t run away.

Sophie would die before she degraded herself in such a way.

She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of asking for food so she tried to hold out for as long as she could. The more time passed, the more she felt herself fading. She sat limply in her harness, arms like limp spaghetti at her side, trying to ignore the gnawing ache in her stomach. _I will not tell him I’m hungry_. She hoped she could stick to her convictions because right now, all she could think about was a cheeseburger…a delicious burger with cheese and pickles and a tomato slice and lettuce with some greasy fries…she could almost _smell_ it…

She was so lost in her fantasies about food that she missed the glance the Winter Soldier tossed back at her. He didn’t care that she was feeling poorly but he knew he had to deliver her in reasonable condition. She would be no use to Hydra if he delivered her _dead_. His sharp eyes were quick enough to take in that she was hungry and weak—weaker than normal. Her eyes had a dull look in them.

She was startled out of her reverie when the van suddenly screeched to a stop and she was thrown forward in her harness and then slammed back against the wall. Rubbing her head slowly, she peered through the front windshield. They were at a gas station. He turned around in his seat and looked at her—or she thought he was looking at her. He still had his mask and goggles on. “Do anything,” he said slowly. “Signal to anyone. And I’ll go back and rip your family to pieces.”

Sophie, effectively cowed, nodded. He turned back around and pulled his mask and goggles off. She leaned forward to try and see his face but his back was turned to her at an angle that she couldn’t _see_ , no matter how much she leaned. The harness didn’t allow her much wiggle room. He stepped out of the van and slammed the door shut. She saw him walking to the gas station store, somewhat hunched over, hands in his pockets. He passed people—a family, a young woman, a couple—and she wondered what they saw. What did his face look like? Was he old? Young? Handsome? Ugly? He was white, she knew at least that from his forehead. Did they just see some average man, shy, minding his own business, looking at his feet while he walked, wearing average workman clothes? Did _anyone_ sense that he was a killer…that he had a girl locked up in his car?

The helpless rage Sophie felt then was incredible. She had to watch as he passed people and no one magically stopped him. She had to watch people pull up for gas, park their cars, walk past the van, without screaming or waving her arms or getting their attention somehow. If he hadn’t killed that cop, she _might_ have tried it. But now she knew it wasn’t an empty threat—he was a murderer and she had no doubt that he would kill her parents if she tried anything. Besides, even if someone tried to help her…she doubted a psycho like him would just let her get away. No, he’d probably just kill the civilian to get her back and she didn’t think any one of these people stood a chance against his ruthlessness and deadly strength.

Sophie was surrounded by people and she was still very much alone.

For the first time in her life, she wished that her ability was _more_ powerful. She’d spend her whole life wishing it didn’t exist—but now she wished it was a hundred times more powerful than it was. Why did she have to get the world’s stupidest, most useless ability? Why couldn’t she be telekinetic or have the powers of fire so she could burn him to a crisp? It would be a satisfying end to the _Winter_ Soldier…

Sophie had avoided thinking about till now but for the first time, she wondered if perhaps her kidnapping had anything to do with her abilities… But no. It couldn’t be. There wasn’t a soul on Earth who knew about them—she’d made sure of that. It _had_ to do with the fact that her dad was powerful and rich. _It’s because of Dad_ , she told herself firmly. _All because of my family connections. They’re worth a lot_. Still…her unease wouldn’t go away. Would her family connections justify this level of violence and aggression? And for that matter, why would her family connections require a kidnapping this extensive and secretive? If he was going to hold her ransom, wouldn’t he have done it in D.C., where she could be exchanged for the money?

Unless he had never planned on giving her back…

Or unless it really _wasn’t_ about her family connections.

She squeezed her eyes shut. _No. Don’t even consider it. It_ can’t _be the other thing. It can’t. It won’t._ Because if it was…the damage she could cause… She shuddered at the thought.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when the driver’s door suddenly opened. He slide into the seat, slammed the door shut, and then tossed a bag in the back. It landed next to her. She opened it and peered inside. Lots of random junk food things. Not exactly the nourishment she’d been hoping for—but food nonetheless. She didn’t even want to know how he’d known she was starving. Was he telepathic? It sometimes seemed like he knew her every move before _she_ even knew it.

She tore into a bag of chips and winced every time she ate one, thinking that her crunching sounded deafening in the silence. He seemed not to notice but she knew by now that he took everything in. He had probably heard her stomach grumbling. He could probably hear her heartbeat. Maybe he was a vampire.

She ate as quietly as she possibly could. The snacks didn’t make her feel very good—too greasy and salty, and she generally tried to eat healthy—but at least her stomach wasn’t growling like Cerberus at the gates of the Underworld. They drove on and she silently watched through the front window as the day, and Florida, passed by. It was a sunny, beautiful day and Sophie could only imagine that the cars around them were full of happy, squabbling families whizzing by on their way to Disney World (if they were anywhere near Disney World). She remembered coming to Disney World but it hadn’t been very fun; her parents didn’t like to go on the rides and they wouldn’t let her go on them alone, so there’d been a lot of standing around and going to shows.

Her legs were cramped up by now and her butt was hurting after sitting for so long. She had never been a car this long before. She’d never even taken a road trip before. The few times she’d gone anywhere in the past, she’d gone with her parents and they’d flown (usually first class). She tried to ignore the ache but eventually the discomfort began to be too much. Looking out the window, she saw they were now driving on a narrow, semi-isolated stretch of highway surrounded by swampy, marshy forests on either side, having driven down further south. She had a sudden brilliant (or possibly stupid or _brilliantly_ stupid) idea and spent a few minutes thinking it over. _Be careful, Soph…if he catches on to it…he might throw you in with the alligators or something…_

Her stomach somersaulting with nerves and anticipation, she called to him, “I have to use the bathroom.”

He ignored her.

She raised her voice. “I _said_ , I have to use the bathroom.”

“Wait until a stop,” came his wooden reply.

Sophie gritted her teeth and then hastily put a pained expression on her face, in case he was watching her in the rear view mirror—which she was sure he was. “Please,” she begged. “I’m going to explode. I haven’t used the bathroom in almost two days. I’m going to pee in my pants and then I’ll smell and people will smell me and ask questions, and you’ll have to stop somewhere and get clothes for me—”

He pulled the van over, screeching to a stop so suddenly and twisting around in his seat so quickly, that Sophie’s heart nearly gave out in fright, thinking he meant to murder her or something. She slammed back against the wall, pulling away from him. But he only stared at her for a long moment—and then he clambered into the back. She cringed away from him as he crawled towards her, not wanting to be anywhere near him— _Is he going to strangle me?!_ —but all he did was roughly unlock her from her harness and shove her towards the front seats of the van. “Get out from the passenger door.”

“What?” she asked, confused.

“ _Now_.”

Then she suddenly understood. _Duh_. If someone driving by saw him pull her out of the back…it would raise some eyebrows. But if someone saw her stepping out from the passenger door… She closed her eyes for a moment. _He is so smart. How can I beat this guy at his own game?_

“You have one second to move or I’m strapping you down again.” His tone made it clear that this was not an idle threat so Sophie got moving. She crawled into the passenger seat, her limbs feeling achy and light from disuse, aware that he was _right behind her_ , following her to the front. She settled into the passenger seat and he into the driver’s seat. She opened her door a crack and he mirrored her movement. Her stomach dropped. _This will never work if he follows me and watches me!_ “You can’t watch me!” she said, not even having to fake her horror.

He looked at her, not saying anything, and Sophie wished again she could snatch his stupid mask and goggles off. See the monster under the mask.

“Seriously, please,” she begged. “I promise I won’t run away. Where the hell would I go, into the wild to get eaten by crocs? Please don’t watch. Give me—give me two minutes. And then you can come get me if I’m not done by then.” She waited for his response, her underarms feeling prickly with sweat and nerves. They sat and stared at each other and Sophie’s heartbeat grew louder with each passing second. She began to feel extremely uncomfortable. _Why isn’t he saying anything? Can he hear my heart? Can he smell my fear or something? Does he know I’m lying? Oh god, why isn’t he speaking?_

“Two minutes,” he finally said.

She didn’t need to be told twice. She opened her door and scrambled down to the ground, too short to simply step down from the van. She left her door open and walked to the back of the van. She stood there for a second and then ducked low and slowly, ever so slowly, crept back around to her door. She made sure to stay far back and low enough that he wouldn’t see her in her side view mirror. Then she waited, her heart pounding. She hoped this would work. He would only get out for one second to grab her, so hopefully he would leave his keys in the ignition…

She waited, hardly daring to breathe, sweat trickling down her neck thanks to nerves and the oppressive Florida heat. No one passed them by on the road, something she was thankful for. She probably looked very weird—and suspicious—crouched here. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she heard his door open and the sound of his weight hitting the ground. The crunching of his combat boots on the gravel. She had seconds. _Now!_ She threw herself into the truck, scrambling up inside and banging her knee in the process. Ignoring the sudden burst of pained tears in her eyes, she sat in the driver’s seat and frantically searched for the keys—and there they were! Hanging, beautiful, ready to go. She wrenched them, starting the engine up, but before she could shift the gear and slam her foot on the accelerator, he was grabbing her left arm (her bruised shoulder screamed in protest) and then she was _flying_ , out of the van, past the guard rail, and into the overgrowth next to the highway.

She hit a tree and fell to the ground. Tasting a mouthful of dirt and regret, she lay there for a moment, shaking from the sudden fright and pain, mentally groaning. She waited a moment, cringing and waiting for his inevitable yanking her up and throwing her into the van—but he didn’t come. She opened one eye and slowly sat up, tears spilling over onto her cheeks from pain and rage. He leaned against the driver’s seat, arms crossed, staring at her. Sophie thought she detected a note of…sarcasm in his stance? Could people _stand_ sarcastically? Or mockingly? Because it seemed like he was. He cocked his head slightly and his meaning couldn’t be clearer: _Are you done?_

Yes, she was. She was so done. She was over. Granted, her plan had been stupid and wild—but it had been her only plan. She had nothing now. She had nowhere to go. So she stood up, ignoring the pain her screaming arm and aching back, dusted herself off, and walked towards the van with the shreds of dignity she had left. She didn’t even stop by him, just walked to the back of the van, opened the doors, climbed in, and sat down. Waited. A moment later, he appeared, locked her back into her harness silently, and climbed out, slamming the doors shut.

Then they were driving away.           

Sophie didn’t know what to do now. She had no clue what came next.

So she slept. It was her only respite.

           

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

The Winter Soldier couldn’t believe the girl’s _audacity_. To try and attempt an escape plan so stupid—did she have a death wish or was she just stupid? She must have known that he would never have let her go that easily…and yet she had still tried. He couldn’t tell if she was incredibly moronic, incredibly crazy, or incredibly suicidal. A part of him was furious at her for trying to pull one over him but a smaller part of him couldn’t help but admire the pure recklessness of it all. He wasn’t reckless by any means—being reckless could mean costing the mission—but she hadn’t _given up_. That was interesting. It could also cause him trouble, however, so he needed to keep a closer eye on her from now on. He was even more furious with himself for actually falling for her stupid plan, no matter how much of a failure it had been.

He looked at her in his rear view mirror. She was asleep, her head slumped over on her shoulder. Her face looked pale and there was a purple bruise on her cheek where he’d punched her. He hadn’t even put half his force into the hit—if he’d used his full force, he would have crushed her face in—but it had still left a mark on her. That wasn’t smart. Bruised faces—especially female ones—attracted attention. He would need to cover that up somehow. Bruises bloomed up and down her left upper arm and he knew that her shoulder would be absolutely purple and blue from being dislocated and then popped back in. He needed to get her a jacket too.

Perhaps he should go slightly easier on her for a while…he didn’t need her to get any more bruised than she was and he’d effectively displayed his strength enough for her to know who she was dealing with. He couldn’t imagine her trying any more tricks. He’d almost seen the resistance literally draining from her body as she wordlessly climbed back into the van without any fighting.

He eyed the clock on the dashboard of the van. Despite her stalling, they were perfectly on schedule. His shoulders relaxed a little but his eyes and mind never stopped scanning or spinning. Some of the Hydra agents thought he was empty and brain-dead inside—a mechanical and vicious dog, Hydra’s pit bull—and it was true that parts of him were empty. But parts of him were more chaotic than anyone could have ever imagined.

A storm pounded inside the Winter Soldier’s head, as it had for over seventy years now every time he was awake.

* * *

 

The sky was dark when Sophie woke and the van was quiet and still. She blinked groggily and rubbed her eyes, pushing her hair away from her face, her mouth tasting acrid and fuzzy. She would have killed for some toothpaste right now. Glancing at the driver’s seat, she saw that the Winter Soldier wasn’t there. She tried to look out the window to see where they were but it was so dark that it was hard. Clearly they weren’t around any buildings. If she squinted, she _thought_ she could see…waves moving in the distance? Were they by the ocean? What were they doing here? And where was the Winter Soldier?

Right on cue, the van’s back doors opened and she jumped a little in fright. He tossed a bag at her and she was still so groggy and confused that she let it fall next to her instead of trying to catch it. He stared in her direction for a moment and then shook his head slightly and slammed the doors shut. Sophie had no idea what that meant. Was he disappointed in her for not catching the bag? _Well, excuse me_ , she thought dully, staring at the plastic. _I’m so sorry that I’m not behaving like a model captive._

If it was still the same day that it had been this morning, then it was Sunday night. She had been gone for almost two-and-three-quarters days now. It was entirely possible—probable, actually—that _still_ no one knew she was gone. Tomorrow the real guessing game would begin: Would it be Monday…or Tuesday…or Wednesday that someone realized something was wrong? Sophie could only hope it wouldn’t take as long as Wednesday but she didn’t have high hopes. Her managers weren’t likely enough to care until she was absent without notice for a full week—then they might start wondering. And she had no real friends to notice or care. Her parents wouldn’t know until Friday, unless they were notified before then. Either way, it _could_ possibly be another five days before anyone realized Sophie was gone—and then who knows how long it would take for them to realize what really happened? If they _ever_ realized, that is…

 _Basically, I’m doomed_.

He hadn’t gotten back into the van and she couldn’t see him in the darkness outside. Was he somewhere out there, beyond her line of sight, looking into the van at her? The thought made her feel prickly with unease. Normal people couldn’t see through the dark well but…something about him was clearly not normal. Obviously he had a metal arm, which was unusual, but prosthetics _did_ exist and even if his prosthetic seemed far too advanced…well, it could still be explained by science. But the way his feet had crushed the floor in her apartment? The way he had leaped off of roofs of impossible heights and distances? The way he had sent her _flying_?

No…there was something different with him. He wasn’t a normal human, physically. There was a chance that his senses were enhanced beyond normal limits as well. Sophie didn’t like the idea at _all_. It meant there truly was a chance he could hear her heartbeat or smell her adrenaline or read her mind. Who knew how far his abilities went? What if she was dealing with some sort of alien, supernatural freak?

Sophie’s stomach cramped a little at the thought and she grabbed the bag to try and distract herself. Instead was more junk food. She couldn’t tell if she was relieved because there was more food or disgusted because it was junk food and chips weren’t really doing it anymore. Was he trying to starve her? She wouldn’t put it past him. And at the bottom of the bag—

Her eyes turned to dimes as she pulled out a mini toothpaste and toothbrush. Her mouth suddenly felt like ash. It was entirely possible that he’d come to the logical conclusion that she would need this by now…but she couldn’t help but feel paranoid that he could read her mind. It would explain him always _knowing_ her next move, where she was, what she wanted…

 _Snap out of it, Sophie_ , she commanded herself, hands shaking as she unscrewed the toothpaste. _Don’t jump to any crazy conclusions._ She brushed her teeth, taking swigs from a water bottle in the bag and spitting into the bucket, closing her eyes so she didn’t have to see her toothpaste-y saliva mix with her old bile and saliva. If she saw _that_ , she really would heave. When she was done, she poured the rest of the water over her head and wiped her face, drying it on the hem of her shirt. Still not perfectly clean but at least she felt _cleaner_. That was a plus.

The second she had finished, his door opened and he slid into the van. This didn’t help lessen her fears that he had been watching her through a window this whole time. Ignoring the clench in her stomach, she took a deep breath and asked, “Are you ever going to tell me why you took me? Or where we’re going?”

He was silent and still, staring out the front windshield.

“Are you ever going to show me your face?” she asked. It seemed incredible to her that she _still_ had no idea what he looked like. Was he doing it for his safety? So if she got away, she wouldn’t be able to identify him to the police or pick him out of a lineup? She didn’t really see how effective his cover would be when he had a _metal arm_. Besides…even if he didn’t have the arm…she knew she would always be able to pick him out of a lineup. There was something to his build, a lethal and dangerous aura that surrounded him, an unnatural stillness that she would _never_ forget. Even if she survived this and lived to be a hundred, she would never forget. He would always haunt her nightmares. The scariest kidnapper alive. Sophie almost wished he was some fat, bald creeper with yellow teeth. At least that way she would know he was truly human and could be defeated or tricked.

This guy seemed… _engineered_.

Even his name implied he was one of a kind. The Winter Soldier. The word “soldier” generally wasn’t a title. Lord, Prince, Captain…these were all titles. “Soldier” wasn’t…and the fact that “soldier” was his title implicitly implied that he was a soldier beyond the rest. The most dangerous soldier out there.

“Soldier” also implied that he reported to someone else. Sophie didn’t know why she had never thought of it before…but perhaps he was _retrieving_ her for someone, or carrying out some sort of mission. That would explain his silence or why he hadn’t touched her yet. If he had been kidnapping her for his own purposes—to hold her ransom, to kill her, because he was obsessed with her…any reason a criminal needed to kidnap someone—wouldn’t he have explained his nefarious purposes yet? Called someone to demand money for her yet? Or, at the very least, sexually assaulted her or tortured her?

But all he had done was hit her—when she resisted him. She had a sneaking suspicion that if she complied with him, he wouldn’t touch her. He almost seemed averse to touch, the way he angled his body away from her, the way he refused to look at her, the stillness of his presence.

“Are you working for someone?” she asked quietly. “Did someone ask you to bring me to them?”

He was silent but she _thought_ she saw him still just a tiny bit more.

“How much are they paying you?” she asked, trying to stay calm. Perhaps there was a way out of this. “I can double it. Triple it. You know who my father is, right?” Of course he did, that was likely the reason he was taking her. “He can pay any sum you want. He can pay more than whatever they’re paying you. You don’t have to do this. Take me back—and I won’t even tell the police. You can take your money and go.”

He didn’t say a word and Sophie suddenly felt stupid. What if she was wrong? What if he _wasn’t_ working for someone? Maybe he really was in it for himself.

But if he was…what did he want? He was remarkably silent when it came to money. Isn’t that what all bad guys wanted?

She tried to think about it logically in her mind. When a bad guy kidnapped a woman, there were usually a few possibilities: 1) He wanted to rape her and/or kill her. 2) He wanted to keep her as some sort slave, the way Ariel Castro had kept those poor women in his house. 3) He wanted to hold her for ransom.

She didn’t think he wanted to rape or kill her. He hadn’t touched her or looked at her inappropriately in a sexual way even once yet. Well…she wasn’t sure if he had _looked_ at her but she had a feeling he hadn’t. Of course, he could absolutely be waiting to just get her to his hidden lair and then he could sexually assault her—but she just had a feeling it wasn’t this. She sincerely hoped so, anyway.

The same went for keeping her as some sort of slave or captive. She didn’t really have any proof _against_ him wanting to do this…but she also didn’t have any definitive proof that he _did_ want to do this. It was all up in the air and going off of his previous actions, he didn’t act like an obsessed man or someone who was doing this because he personally _desired_ to have her.

And then there was the money. The most logical reason he could be doing this—and yet he hadn’t made a ransom call (that she knew of) and he was remaining mum on the subject, even when she was offering millions of dollars that she knew her dad would pay to get her back.

 _There_ is _another thing he could want you for_ , a cynical part of her mind said. _And you’re deliberately trying to ignore it. Something only_ you _have the ability to do._

The idea made Sophie’s heart freeze in terror. She would honestly have rather been assaulted and then chopped up into little pieces than consider this option. At least that way, only _she_ would get hurt. But if it was the other thing…in the wrong hands…she could quite literally end the entire world. Or at least a good portion of it. She could be responsible for so much death and despair.

She wished she had a cyanide pill hidden in her teeth like spies always seemed to in novels. She wanted to kill herself right now, thinking about what she was capable if utilized in full form in the worst way.

He suddenly got out of the car and she wondered if she had pissed him off. The back doors opened and he climbed in, unlocked her, and dragged her out of the van. Her legs felt unsteady as she stumbled away from in, blinking and taking in the scene around her. The air was hot and heavy and humid. The sky was a dark blue and she could see stars sparkling above. The air was heavy with the smell of salt and the sea and she could hear the faint rushing, roaring sound of the ocean to her left. Sand and gravel gritted under her Converse and the faintest breeze teased her limp locks, pressed against her already-sweaty neck.

Her t-shirt and yoga pants were sticking to her body because of the humidity and sea mist swirling over it and she pinched her shirt and held it away from her body, fanning her face and looking for any signs of humanity. She saw none. They seemed to parked right beyond a dark and abandoned strip of a beach. Dense overgrowth and forest rose up on their right and the beach stretched down the way on the left. There were no buildings or lights anywhere in sight. The area was completely isolated.

 _Okay, maybe I was wrong. Maybe this is where he’s going to cut me up into little pieces and feed me to the sharks_. Heartbeat picking up in fear, she turned questioningly to him but he was standing with his arms crossed, staring past her at a distant point in the ocean. She followed his gaze and squinted when she saw pinpricks of light in the distance. What the hell was that?

“What…?” she murmured to herself, stepping forward onto the soft sand, squinting. As she slowly walked closer to the water’s edge, the lights came closer as well and she realized it was a _boat_. Not as big as a yacht or a cruiser but not as small as a fishing boat. Just a medium-sized boat that could probably hold ten or fifteen people on it. It only had two small lights on inside; the rest was pitch black.

In a blinding moment of clarity, Sophie understood.

Her body reacted faster than her mind did. She was already running down the beach when her mind caught up with her and by the time her mind _did_ catch up with her, she already knew running was pointless. She wouldn’t have been able to outrun him on solid pavement with good running shoes—what had made her think she could outrun him in Converse on soft, squishy sand? It felt like the nightmare where you run and run and run but you seem to run more slowly with every passing minute. It was almost a relief when he grabbed her from behind and dragged her back. His touch felt casual, almost _gentle_ , compared to his extreme violence before and Sophie didn’t fight him anyway, feeling too limp and confused and exhausted to really go at it.

In a way, the whole scene might have been something out of a tragicomedy—if it hadn’t been so horrifying.

They stood there, waiting and watching as the boat drew nearer. She stood with her back pressed against his chest, his metal arm around her waist, her almost drooping into him, so great was her exhaustion. If someone had seen them from a distance, they might have thought it was a couple standing together on the beach, that was how intimate their stance looked. However, they wouldn’t have seen how painfully tight he was holding her, how blank his eyes were as he watched the ship get closer, or how defeated and scared she looked.

She closed her eyes and focused on not puking. He’d probably make her eat it or something. _I am going on this boat. This boat is clearly not an official cruise around the U.S., nor is it going out for some fishing or a joyride. This boat is going to leave the country and I am leaving with it._

Sophie knew now she was fully, completely, one hundred percent alone in this mess.

“Where is it taking us?” she asked, fingers muffling her words, trying to breathe normally. She didn’t expect an answer and by god, she wasn’t disappointed. He didn’t say anything. He should have been called the Silent Soldier, not the Winter Soldier.

Finally, the boat seemed to stop moving. It was still hundreds of yards out from the shore but it didn’t seem to be moving any closer. This was apparently their cue. The Winter Soldier let her go and walked towards the trees in the distance to their right. He didn’t even look back at her, assuming she wouldn’t run again. He was right. She wasn’t stupid enough to try the same exact thing twice. She watched dully as he dragged a small canoe or something out from the trees and brought it over to the water. He looked up at her and she walked towards him. No point in prolonging the inevitable. She stepped into the boat and he pushed it into the water. Then he leaped in, the small boat shuddering and jerking at his sudden weight. He picked up two oars laying at the bottom of the boat and began to row rhythmically. Sophie imagined picking up one of the oars and slamming it over his head, cracking his skull open, letting his brains slide to the floor.

She turned away and focused on the boat they were getting closer to. As they got close to it, she could see people moving around on the tiny deck. They bumped against the boat and a rope ladder was thrown over the edge, clattering against Sophie’s feet. She glanced back at the Winter Soldier, who was watching her through his goggles and mask, and began to climb up the rope ladder. The rope handles were slick and she lost her footing once, slipping and falling, but he grabbed her waist from below and shoved her back up. In fact, he shoved her so hard that he almost sent her flying over the edge of the boat. She grasped the edge and other hands—rough, cold hands, a man’s hands—grabbed her and pulled her over on the other side. She hit the deck and lay there for a moment before slowly getting to her feet. The Winter Soldier leaped over the edge feet over arms in a lithe, catlike move that would have wowed Sophie—had she not been too busy staring at the faces of the men who surrounded her. Powerfully-built men with shaved heads and Nazi tattoos, tattered black clothes, and dangerous glints in their eyes. Modern day sea pirates, Russian by the look of them.

Sophie wanted to be four again, sitting in the cozy comfort of her bedroom, her mother reading bedtime stories and favorite childhood poems to her before she fell asleep.

But all the king’s horses and all her father’s men…wouldn’t find Sophie ever again. And she had a sickening feeling that her story wasn’t going to have a happily ever after.

 

           


	5. Chapter 5

The Russians were the best the Winter Soldier could do. His handlers had warned him: they wanted this mission to stay as low brow and quiet as possible. No loud scenes, no one held at gunpoint (unless necessary), no taking over any vehicle—land, sea, or air—that would attract the attention of any authorities. “This one is too important,” he had been told. He still didn’t see what was so important about this weak, cowering girl, but he wasn’t one to question orders so he complied.

The good thing about Russians were that they were so easy to mold. They didn’t have any political or religious agenda as the rogue Irish. They didn’t have any superiority/god complex the way the Americans did. They were motivated by whoever had the most money or power—or both. The Winter Soldier didn’t have money but he quite clearly represented those who did and power was something he was not short on. At all. So he had made the necessary arrangements for this boat full of illegal Russian thugs to take him and the girl to Cuba. From there, a plane waited to take them to their final destination.

The problem wouldn’t be leaving the U.S. The government only cared about who was _entering_ the U.S., not so much who was leaving (unless they were fleeing fugitives—but even then, it was much easier to go to Cuba than it was to come to Florida). The problem was the Russians. Even though they were effectively equal parts cowed and impressed by the obvious danger he represented—they could hear it in every word of quiet, cold Russian he spoke to them—they were also fickle humans. Ones who could be swayed by others. No one was more powerful than Hydra in its totality but the Winter Soldier knew that if someone else—someone blatantly wealthy and flagrant in waving about money and weapons—had approached them in between his last talk with them and now…they could easily sell him out.

And even if they didn’t do anything that drastic…they were still men, depraved and weak inside. The Winter Soldier obviously didn’t care about the welfare of the girl—but she did need to be delivered safe and sound. He was the only one allowed to use violence against her. And this boat was full of violent, immoral men who had probably been away at sea and away from women for far too long. He would need to keep the girl safe from them, lest one decide he wanted to have his way with her.

Not that he couldn’t easily kill every single man on this boat, of course. But he would rather have avoided that. Guns would be drawn and she might be killed in the crossfire. Either that or he would have to then sail them to Cuba himself. Which he could do…but he didn’t want to. It was much easier to sit still and let someone else do the work while he carefully watched their every move. He could stay more easily in control that way. Given that the girl had now tried three wild escape attempts, he wouldn’t have put it past her to throw herself overboard or something like that. He needed to keep a close eye on her.

It was astonishing, really. She kept trying to escape but she seemed to lose more heart with each attempt. He hoped she had worn herself out by now to the point of not trying anymore. It was getting wildly irritating going after her and she was truly testing his patience. She was lucky that he was blessed with the ability to control himself for extremely long periods of time—after all, he’d had to spend hours sitting frozen before, sniper rifle ready in steady hand—because had he been a lesser man, he would have murdered her by now. 

So after speaking with the leader of the crew in a low, measured voice, and making it clear that he and the girl would stay below decks _alone_ and would not be disturbed (the “or else” was hugely obvious to every man on board), he grabbed the girl’s upper arm tightly, his whole hand encircling it, and yanked her roughly down the teeny, tiny stairs to below decks, not caring that she almost fell down the last two steps. He stepped back up the stairs and slammed the trapdoor in the ceiling shut, blocking the top deck completely. He didn’t lock it; there was no need when he was around.

* * *

 

He pulled Sophie down the stairs so roughly that she slipped on the last two, twisting and almost landing on her butt. He pushed her away from him roughly. She collapsed on a tiny bed—one fit for a child more than an adult—and watched as he closed the hatch that led to below deck. Then he stumped back down the stairs and stood there for a moment, looking around. The only place to sit was beside Sophie on the tiny bed. She wished she could see his face, see his expression. Was he cursing the lack of available seating? Or did he not really care?

Finally he went and sat down on the floor, leaning against the opposite wall. The space was so small that he was only about five feet away from her. Sophie, gratefully that he hadn’t decided to sit on the bed next to her (she didn’t know what she would do if he came that close to her but it probably wouldn’t be very pleasant), pulled her feet up on the bed. She drew up her knees against her chest and wrapped her arms around them, burying her face into her knees. The ship was gently rocking to and fro and she felt the beginnings of motion sickness rising in her gut. She hoped there was a bucket to vomit in somewhere because things could get pretty ugly later on.

The only light came from one tiny circular window set into the wall behind him and a dim, flickering bulb on the ceiling. Otherwise the place smelled moldy and grimy, stale with dust and sea water and a greasy, fishy smell that turned her stomach. The walls were a faded white, the mattress a dinghy yellow color. A blue anchor was painted onto one wall but it was faded and peeling. The whole boat had the air of a once-handsome vessel gone to seed. She wondered who it had been stolen from.

She wanted desperately to lay down but she didn’t want to touch any more of the mattress than she had to, so she stayed upright. As it turned out, this was a mistake. Once the boat got moving, the rocking got worse. They were going at a relatively slow, steady pace to avoid attracting any attention—sliding silently through the sea, lights totally dark now except for the one below deck—but the thing was, the slower they went the more the rocking of the ocean was noticeable. And it was a calm, steady night but even that was too much for Sophie, who had never been too steady on her feet on even _land._

She tried taking deep breaths to quell her nausea but the pressure kept building behind her eyes and in her stomach until she knew she was going to throw up. “I’m going to puke,” she gasped, a sheen of sweat on her face from the nausea and heat inside the room. She slid forward off the bed just as the boat rocked towards the Winter Soldier’s side. She fell off the bed and hit the floor, getting up and looking for a bucket or pail of some sort—

Too late. She bent over, gagging. She wanted so badly to throw up and feel that relief that came after expelling the vomit—but she had nothing in her stomach. She hadn’t had a chance to eat any of the new food he’d gotten from…wherever the hell he’d gotten it from. She looked desperately up at him, wiping spit from her mouth, eyes streaming—but he only stared impassively in her direction.

Her heart seemed to fail. Just when she thought he couldn’t get any crueler—or emptier on the inside—he surprised her and _did_. He was just sitting there and watching her get sick. He didn’t even have the decency to find her something to throw up in. Her anger at him made her cry even harder (she’d always been an angry crier, to her intense embarrassment). She retched a few more times and then collapsed on the ground, taking deep breaths and trying to calm her stomach down. The ground felt sticky but it also felt cool against her hot and sweaty cheek. She closed her eyes and tried to turn the rocking sensation of the boat into something comforting. _Think of it as a lullaby_ , she told herself, taking deep breaths. _It’s gentle. It’s nice._ She didn’t feel convinced at all but laying on the floor made her feel more…solid, somehow, and her stomach felt more steady. So yeah, she was definitely staying on the floor.

She fell into an uneasy sleep, done out by hunger and pure exhaustion.

* * *

 

She lay on the ground for a little while and he watched her. It seemed she had fallen into a restless sleep, her face drawn, expression almost frowning. He waited a while and then picked her up and put her on the bed. This wasn’t out of concern for her; he was just worried that the rocking would make something fall off one of the shelves around them and clobber her in the head. The last thing he needed was her skull cracked open _now_.

She felt too light in his arms, he noted as he put her on the bed. Of course she was light—she looked like she weighed nothing, perhaps 110 pounds max—but she felt…bony. Her clavicle looked more prominent and her skin looked stretched tight over her skin. He suddenly felt a frisson of irritation crackle through him. He had been careless—he hadn’t fed her enough. He would be punished—and appropriately—if he delivered her like this. He didn’t know what Hydra wanted with her but she would be no use to them malnourished. It would affect her physically and mentally.

He clambered up the stairs, yanking the trapdoor back, to go in search of some food for her to eat. There had to be something on this godforsaken vessel that he could eat. He closed the door after him and the men sitting or standing around gave him furtive, suspicious, almost fearful looks. He understood and accepted it. It was only common sense. Standing there with his cybernetic arm and face mask and combat gear…he struck an imposing figure. They would have been total idiots not to see the danger that radiated off of him.

 _“Where is the Captain?”_ he asked in Russian.

 _“Top,”_ one of them replied almost resentfully, pointing to the small cabin with glass windows lofted above the stern of the boat. The Winter Soldier launched up the stairs and entered the tiny space, slamming the door open with so much force that the glass shuddered. He didn’t look behind him, knowing full well that the men were too intimidated by him to do anything.

However, even the smartest and most lethal of men could make mistakes. And human could be so very stupid. A dark figure silently opened the trapdoor and slipped down the stairs, unbeknownst to the Winter Soldier.

* * *

 

Sophie woke to a heavy hand pressing down on her mouth. Her eyes flew open in alarm and at first all she saw was the dark, muscular silhouette leaning over her, pressing her down into the mattress, covering her mouth so she couldn’t scream. He clambered onto her, straddling her. She thought it was the Winter Soldier and faintly thought, _So he_ is _going to do this_ , right before he forced her legs apart and her mind positively exploded with panic.

“NO!” she screamed but nothing came out because his hand was covering her mouth so tightly. She could barely breathe because of it. Her head spun and she was aware of a dirty, fishy, body odor smell wafting off of him—and the fact that both of his hairy arms were human flesh.

It wasn’t the Winter Soldier.

In that moment, Sophie wanted nothing more than the Winter Soldier to appear. He constantly showed up when she wanted him gone and yet the one goddamn time she _needed_ him, he had to disappear?!

The man was hissing, “Shut up—shut up or I’ll kill you, cut your pretty little face—” in broken, heavily accented English, while trying to yank on the waistband of her bands. He was strong but not Winter Soldier strong. She could hurt him. _I can do this_. She steeled herself and then smashed her knee upward as hard as she could. She missed his groin— _NO! Dammit!_ —but still hit his inner thigh and he let out a swear and groan. His hand slipped a little and she screamed as loudly as she could before he quickly covered it again. She tried to bite his fingers but she could barely open her mouth. She’d hurt him but not enough to force him off, because he was clawing at her shirt now while pressing her down so hard she was afraid he was going to suffocate her by accident (or perhaps on purpose).

* * *

 

The Winter Soldier heard her scream and knew instantly that he’d miscalculated. He’d overestimated these idiots. Clearly they weren’t afraid of him enough to listen to his commands. Well—now they would be. He launched himself out the door, skipping the steps completely and landing on the deck so hard his heels made half-inch crushed dents in the floor. He did this on purpose, for impact, and knew it had worked when every man on deck froze and watched him. Weapons were immediately drawn but he didn’t notice or give a damn. He had already thrown himself down the stairs to below deck.

* * *

 

One minute the disgusting man was there, on top of her, close to ripping her clothes off—and the next he was flying, hitting the wall so hard Sophie swore the entire _boat_ shuddered. She lay there in a daze for a moment, the silhouette of the Winter Soldier standing over her as he assessed in a nanosecond that she hadn’t been harmed—and then he swung around and smashed his fist into the man’s face, who had lunged at him. The man slammed back into the wall again and then the Winter Soldier grabbed him by the neck and dragged him up the stairs. He stopped and looked back at Sophie and she cringed back into the wall. He looked terrifying, standing there and holding this man, mask on, his metal hand clenched around the man’s throat. The man who was currently turning purple and spluttering and choking.

Sophie didn’t care.

“You,” he told her. “Come upstairs. Now.” And then he was gone, dragging the man after him.

Sophie didn’t want to go at all. She wanted to burrow herself into the mattress and hide for forever. But she was afraid of what he would do if she didn’t come so she went up the stairs, wincing with every step. She emerged to find the Winter Soldier standing in the middle of the deck, holding the man almost casually. Every man on board had a gun pointed at him but the Winter Soldier didn’t seem to notice or care. Sophie thought that was pretty ominous.

He said something slowly in a foreign language and then he spoke in English. Sophie suspected it was for her benefit. “I told you,” he said slowly and carefully, “to stay away from me and the girl.”

“This one didn’t listen,” he went on. His voice was quiet but deadly. Slow. Careful. “Let me show you what happens when you don’t comply.” He moved so suddenly that no one could even blink, suddenly snapping the man’s neck with a sickening snap, almost twisting it all the way around. Sophie let out a shriek and some of the men swore. Some let out startled cries. And some just looked shocked but grim, as if they had expected this.

“I can take out every single one of you,” he promised and Sophie could tell he meant it. “But I don’t have to. This was his mistake—and his punishment. Put down your guns and stay away from the girl and everything will be fine.”

There was a long, drawn out silence. It was clear that the men were angry and afraid, and some of them wanted revenge for their fallen comrade—but it was also clear that the Winter Soldier was deadly, ruthless, and meant every word of what he said. So one by one, guns were slowly lowered and the Winter Soldier nodded once. Then he kicked the man’s broken body aside and pulled Sophie back below deck.

This time he locked the trapdoor shut.

The silence this time was a hundred times more awkward. It seemed to swell between them. Maybe he didn’t feel it, since he never spoke anyway, but Sophie certainly did. He was horrible—he had kidnapped her, attacked her, and murdered whoever got in his way—but he had also just saved her. She wasn’t naïve enough to think he did it because he cared about her. She knew he’d done it to preserve her for whatever it was he needed with her.

But still…he’d saved her. And Sophie was a polite person. Politeness was ingrained in her as much as avoiding people was.

“Thank you,” she said, slowly lowering herself onto the bed. He had settled himself onto the floor again and slowly raised his head to stare at her through the mask and goggles. “For…saving me,” she said.

He didn’t respond but Sophie allowed herself to hope that perhaps _something_ had changed. She got off the bed and walked towards him slowly, warily, waiting for him to make a move or punch her. He didn’t. He just watched her approach. She knelt by him, her heart pounding and mind screaming, _WHAT ARE YOU DOING? THIS IS INSANE!_ She slowly reached out towards his face—if she could just pull his mask off and see what he _looked like_ —perhaps reason with him as a human, face-to-face, with eye contact—

“Stop.” He grabbed her wrist in an iron grip before she could touch his mask. She let out a tiny squeak of pain and his grip tightened until it felt like her delicate wrist bones might snap. “This doesn’t change anything. Shut up and stay in your place.” And then he shoved her away from him.

Her face burned with a million things all at once: anger, humiliation, the sting of rejection (rejection was never pretty, even if it came from a murderous psycho). She swallowed once and her mouth tightened into a flat line. _You were an idiot, Sophie._

She walked back to the bed and pulled herself onto it.

_He can’t be reasoned with._

She curled up into a ball and faced the wall, turning her back on him.

_He’s a monster._


	6. Chapter 6

They had to go approximately 485 miles from Florida to Cuba and the boat traveled at 10 knots, steadily cruising through the water. If they kept this steady rate up, they would reach Cuba in approximately 48 hours. Sophie didn’t know this, of course, but the Winter Soldier did the calculations in his head and tonelessly told Sophie to be prepared to spend two days on the boat. He didn’t really care about reassuring her or giving her any extra information but he sensed that she would do something drastic if she didn’t know how long the journey would be.

It was Monday morning and they would arrive around very late Tuesday night or very early Wednesday morning. It all depended on whether they increased or decreased their speed—but the oceans were calm and Sophie had a feeling they were just going to keep cruising at this speed.

The thought of spending another two days on this horrible, rocking boat with the Winter Soldier and a bunch of Russian thugs who probably belonged to the mob made Sophie want to throw herself overboard. She half considered it for a while, too, except she morosely figured that the Winter Soldier was not that easily deterred. He would probably just dive into the water, save her, and then beat the crap out of her once he brought her back on board. It was amazing how the captive wanted to die and it was the captor who was forcibly keeping her alive. Wasn’t it usually the other way around?

The Winter Soldier must have left her at some point during the night because there was a bag on Sophie’s bed with the toothbrush and toothpaste she thought she’d left in the van, a roll of toilet paper, a water bottle, and some random snacks. No junk food this time: beef jerky, dried sugared fruits, and saltine crackers. That was it. Not the most appealing combination but Sophie could care less. And she had no idea where the food or toilet paper had come from, but if she had to guess, she’d say he’d taken it from the Russians. Probably forcibly. “I’m going upstairs to brush my teeth,” she told him and tentatively began climbing up the stairs. She expected him to stop her but he didn’t. Strange.

The men looked at her once when she came above deck but then they hurriedly looked away and she remembered what had happened yesterday. Her stomach flipped. They were probably too afraid to even look at her now. She had to say, this wasn’t exactly a bad thing—but the _reason_ why they were afraid to look at her was a bad thing. She had become a threat somehow just by being in association with him.

She brushed her teeth and spat into the ocean, silently apologizing to Mother Nature. She held her arms out, allowing the faint sea spray to mist over her. Her hair felt greasy to her and she wondered if she smelled. She had never worn the same underwear or clothes straight for this long before, nor had she ever gone without a shower this long. It was a disgusting feeling.

She turned around and was startled to see the Winter Soldier emerging from the trapdoor, standing on the first step, arms crossed, watching her silently. Of course he wouldn’t have let her go off on her own—why had she ever assumed he would? She ignored him as she approached him. She looked past his shoulder down to below deck and assumed he would move out of her way—but he didn’t.

She looked up at him, frowning, and he stared down at her. It looked like he was almost challenging her. _Really? It’s not enough that he’s ruined my life and turned everything upside down—now he has to have an attitude problem and annoy me?_ She was so irritated that she didn’t even do the usual thing and politely ask him to step aside. She just turned herself sideways and squeezed past him. She was slender enough that she could slip past him without brushing up against him…too much.

He followed her down, naturally, and Sophie’s irritation was growing with each second. So she said, “I need to use the bathroom. Go away.” He stood there for a moment and she dared to get even bolder. “I said go away. I need to use the bathroom—or bucket, or whatever the hell I’m going to use.”

She saw his fingers twitch violently and took a step back— _Careful, Sophie, don’t push him too far_ —but amazingly, he complied. He turned and went back up the steps, sliding the trapdoor shut. She considered hurrying up and locking up—but glumly, she realized he would probably just rip the entire door off of its hinges to get down there. And then there would always be a hole there with a chance of someone peering (or leering) down at her.

She found a small bucket in a corner and squatted over it, trying hard not to think about what she was doing. When she was done with her business, she wiped herself off and held the bucket, wondering what to do with it. Eyeing the tiny circular window on the opposite wall, she walked over to it, lurching slightly as the boat rocked on the waves, and pried the window open. The circular glass swung outwards and she carefully, awkwardly dumped the waste out of the window. It was the grossest thing she’d ever done before but she really had no choice in a situation like this. She hoped she would get a chance to take a scalding shower before her death, which was probably coming really soon.

She hid the bucket in a corner, stuffing with a bunch of ratty blankets to mask any remnant smell, and then sat down on her bed _just_ in time for him to slide the trapdoor open.

Unless he had read her mind and knew she was done. Sophie still wasn’t ruling that out as a possibility.

* * *

 

She was getting bold—too bold. He had done the right thing, saving her from that man last night, but he could tell it had given her a tiny bit of confidence she _really_ shouldn’t have. That and combined with the fact that he hadn’t attacked her in a while…and her foolish, stupid attempt to try and form a human connection with him by seeing his face… He cracked his knuckles. Yes, she was getting out of line. She mistakenly thought he was softening toward her—that she could befriend him or push his limits.

She was wrong.

He would show her how wrong she was.

* * *

 

Sophie expected him to come down the steps and go sit in his corner as usual. She didn’t expect him to stride over to her bed and deliver a stinging blow to her face. It happened so quickly that she didn’t even have time to cry out in pain or shock—one second she was sitting upright and the next she was laying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, hand slowly raising to her bloody lip, ears ringing from the blow.

_What just…?_

He knelt over her and pressed his metal hand to her throat. She stiffened in terror, hardly daring to breathe. His fingers felt icy-cool on her skin and she could hear the faint clicks and whirs of his arm as the tiny metal plates in it adjusted and shifted so he could move. She wanted desperately to be able to look him in the eyes— _glare_ at him—but he was still wearing his goggles and she was too cowardly, deep down inside. She knew this. She stared at the ceiling, not breathing, trembling.

“If you ever speak to me like that again,” he whispered, bending low so his face was inches from her own, “I will rip your throat out.”

Then he was turning around and stumping up the stairs, slamming the trapdoor shut so hard that it shook and dust fell from the ceiling. Sophie lay there, swollen mouth open, fingers pressed to her bloody lip, shaking and trying her hardest not to cry.

 _You deserve this for trying to be brave, you stupid little girl_ , the meanest part of her mind told her. _You were asking for this to happen. You know he’s not a good guy. What did you think you could do, tame him?_

Sophie closed her eyes and let the blood drip into her mouth. For some reason, she wanted to taste the salt. Tears trickled out of her eyes and down the sides of her face, into her ears and hair. They soaked the mattress beneath her head and a thin drop of blood trickled down her chin and dropped onto her neck, staining her skin with a thin red streak. She felt too numb and frozen to wipe any of it off. Let her lay there, tear-stained and bloody. A good representation of her. Her ears seemed to keep ringing and echoing strange, muffled noises.

She wished again that she had _useful_ powers. Why, oh why, couldn’t she be like one of the Avengers? She didn’t know much about them—only the basics, which _everyone_ knew after they had saved the world two years ago, during the Battle of New York—but she knew that if she’d had Captain America’s super strength or Iron Man’s suits or the Hulk’s strength or Thor’s powers…or even Black Widow or Hawkeye’s fighting skills…she would never be in this mess. Couldn’t she have had telekinesis or super-speed or the ability to fly? _Something_ that could help her get out of this mess? No, she had the world’s most useless powers, powers that had ruined her life and certainly weren’t helping now.

At the very least if she couldn’t _be_ an Avenger, she wished she could send out a radio distress call to one of them so they could get her. _Hey, Captain America or Iron Man or Thor. I’m being held captive by the Winter Soldier. He seems like a superhuman himself. Do you think you could possibly fight him for me and rip his head off and return me home? Much love, Sophie Duran. P.S. Love what you did in New York, thanks for that!_

She smiled weakly at her own silly daydream. She didn’t fall asleep—she wasn’t sleepy enough to drift off, though she wish she could have—but instead just lay there, eyes closed, focused on ignoring the pain in her face and the nausea in her stomach. She tried to distract herself by replaying all the happy memories of her life. She didn’t have very many joyously happy memories—her life had a strange one full of mishaps and isolation and overprotective parents…and then there was also the college incident—but right now, even just sitting around and reading books while drinking tea felt like the happiest memory in the universe. Even the memories of her mother dragging her to stupid society events seemed happy right now.

Would her parents know she was gone yet? Probably not. She had missed her day shift at Home Depot. Her coworkers would be cursing her and her manager would have marked her up. She didn’t foresee any alarms being raised yet.

 _I think I literally socially destroyed myself into an early grave._ She could have killed herself if she didn’t think the Winter Soldier would probably pass through Death’s door and literally drag her back even from the great beyond itself. He was nothing if not persistent.

She didn’t fall asleep but she fell into a strange dreamlike state where she seemed to be drifting through her past memories. She was still vaguely aware of the rocking of the boat and general shouts up above and the feeling of her hands clasped on her stomach… But none of it seemed to matter as much as her memories. Her eyes were closed and she drifted through her own mind, shifting through her mental files and choosing different ones to slip into.

Sitting on the couch when the final Harry Potter book finally came out, nearly vibrating with excitement as she flipped open to the first chapter…

Painting her nails hot pink while flipping through a _Vogue_ and wishing she was good at making girlfriends so she could go shopping with one…

Taking a rare trip to the National Mall and enjoying the sunshine as she walked around the edge and people-watched…

Pouring her heart out into her journal only to rip those pages out after and burn them, still too paranoid that someone would find out about her…

Choosing a can of pale lavender paint from Home Depot to repaint her small bedroom walls with…

Someone shaking her…no, someone _roughly_ shaking her…

Her eyes slowly opened and she stared, brow furrowed, at the Winter Soldier, who stood above her. He was saying something, she thought, but she couldn’t tell because he wore a mask. All she heard was a strange, garbled noise come out of his mouth. She frowned and stared up at him. He was saying something and she couldn’t understand. She expected him to yank her up—and he did. But the entire world, not just the boat, tipped when he did and she fell over like a rag doll, tumbling off the bed and onto the floor. She lay there for a second, feeling extremely bewildered, and then she clambered to her feet. The ringing in her ears kept going and her legs felt like jelly. Why were the walls tilting so around her like this? Why was the Winter Soldier turning as if he, too, were spinning in a slow circle?

She slowly reached out to touch him, just to make sure he was _real_ and she wasn’t hallucinating, but she missed by a long shot, even though she was moving very slowly, and stumbled, falling over back onto the bed, feeling dizzy. He stood still and stared down in her direction. She stared back at his black mask and goggles, mouthing to herself, “What is going on? Think, Sophie, think, think…”

She closed her eyes and recalled something from a high school anatomy and physiology class: equilibrium. The thing that affected hearing and balance within the body. It could be temporary thrown off by a hard blow to the head. She remembered her teacher telling them a story where she got hit in the head by a baseball bat and couldn’t hear well or walk well for a good two hours. She had to go lay down to get over it.

“That’s funny,” she said and she could hear her voice now, slightly muffled but growing clearer. “Equilibrium.” She struggled to sit up and he gripped her arm in a crushing grip and pulled her up. She tried to tug away from him but it was like trying to pull a twig away from a gorilla: useless. So she let him hold onto her while she told him, “You hit me so hard you threw off my equilibrium.” And then she started laughing.

Had it affected her emotions as well?

Or was she just laughing because really, how much worse could it get? It was so bad that at this point, all she could do was tiredly laugh. Her mind was frazzled beyond the point of caring. If he punched her in the face right now, she wouldn’t have even flinched. She was learning to expect the pain whenever and wherever.

Tears welled up in her eyes. _Did I do this to myself? Can I really blame him for taking advantage of me when I basically made myself a victim? I made myself weak. I isolated myself._

_No. No. Don’t think like that. You don’t deserve this. You’ve never hurt anyone._

_But am I right or wrong?_

He spoke again and this time his words made more sense: “You need to eat.”

“Why?” she asked, wiping the tears off of her face.

“Because you’ll die if you don’t,” he said. It didn’t even sound like a threat this time—he was stating a fact. And he was right: she would die if she didn’t eat. But isn’t that what she wanted? To die and escape from this nightmare?

 _No. You hate yourself for being weak—so be strong now. Of_ course _you don’t want to die. You’ll find a way out of this._

Her heart swelled. _I will find a way out of this._

Even if it did kill her in the end…she decided that she would go down heroically. Maybe she would die—but it wouldn’t be by her own hand or through her own choice. She wouldn’t let herself waste away. She’d wasted her entire life running away from her problems but she could at least face death with some dignity, couldn’t she?

She silently picked up the bag and picked through it, slowly and mindlessly eating a stick of the beef jerky, absentmindedly shredding it with her fingers as she thought about what came next. She didn’t even notice she was done eating it until he spoke from across the room: “Keep going.”

“I feel full,” she announced.

“Keep. Going.”

She’d made a vow to herself not to kill herself—but that didn’t mean he didn’t still terrify the living daylights out of her. Her stomach flipped horribly at his flat, threatening words and she pacified him by eating some of the sugared fruits. Everything was dry and tasteless but it didn’t really matter. She was too consumed with thoughts over what was coming next. Somehow she had allowed the entire day to pass by as she daydreamed and evening had fallen. Just over 24 hours to go until they reached their destination. Where was it? What was going to happen there? Was that their destination or just another stop along the way?

Looked like she would find out tomorrow night.

           

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

The next day was largely uneventful. More food had appeared on Sophie’s bed overnight and she vaguely wondered if the Winter Soldier ever actually slept. She hadn’t seen him sleep even once—but then again, she spent too much of her own time sleeping to really notice if _he_ slept. She resolved to try and keep an eye out for it. If he did indeed sleep…it would be a good opportunity to stab him in the neck and make her escape.

Sophie figured they were going to Cuba. No one had explicitly told her this but she wasn’t an idiot. Cuba was the closest land mass to Florida and it would take a lot longer than two days to sail further down south to South America, if that’s where they were headed. She didn’t know much about Cuba except that people illegally immigrated from Cuba to Florida very often…which gave her an ominous feeling. What exactly were they escaping from? Sophie had always been useless at world history but she suddenly wished she’d paid more attention to it in class. It would have been nice to know what she was walking into.

She spent the day morosely eating the dried fruits from the bag, trying to organize her thoughts. She didn’t know what to focus on first. Attempting another escape from the Winter Soldier? Not a smart move right now. Planning an escape when they hit land? Possibly…except without knowing the lay of the land, where would she escape to? If she was in a foreign country she would need to get to the American embassy. The problem was…if the answer was that obvious to her, she was sure it would be obvious to the Winter Soldier. He would follow her to the embassy. And she was sure he didn’t care about international diplomacy—he would kill everyone in the embassy who tried to protect her. And then on top of getting kidnapped, she would have started an international incident, because the U.S. would obviously blame Cuba for the attack and…

No, the embassy was out of the question.

If she could get to a phone…call her parents and leave a message or even talk to them _directly_ …let them know where she was… She knew her father would use as much power as he had to come get her. He would be able to contact the proper authorities. But would that put her parents in jeopardy? Sophie desperately wanted to go home but she was so, _so_ afraid that the Winter Soldier would take his revenge and hurt lots of innocent people because of her actions.

She could also hide out on the island and accompany a group of illegal immigrants on her way to Florida. She might get arrested but for her, that would be an amazing thing. She would gladly go with the U.S. authorities and spend a year in jail if she had to, to get away from the Winter Soldier. But that was all hedging on the fact that she’d be able to find some immigrants on their way to Cuba…who would even _allow_ her to come…didn’t the coyotes who ferried them usually demand a cash sum up front? Sophie had no money on her. They certainly wouldn’t squeeze her onto a crowded boat out of the goodness of their hearts.

_Or you have your last option. You can just go with him to wherever he’s taking you and figure it out from there._

That was the most hopeless option—but also the one that kept the most people safe. Sophie didn’t delude herself into thinking she was some brave hero. If she could get to safety and a few people got hurt along the way…she would have taken that chance. But the thing was, the Winter Soldier wouldn’t just _hurt_ people…he would destroy them. And he would destroy a lot of them. She could all but hear that threat when he spoke to her. And that was something she morally could not bring herself to do. She valued her life but not above a whole crowd of other lives.

Going with him it was, then.

They arrived around midnight. The boat didn’t pull all the way up to land, instead stopping a mile out. The Winter Soldier let Sophie above deck and she slowly climbed over the edge of the boat and down a small rope ladder into a waiting lifeboat. He followed, the weight of his jump into the lifeboat making it bob violently, and then he picked up some white oars at the bottom of the lifeboat and began rowing again. The moon was full and it illuminated their way, sending beams of white and silver across the dark blue glassy water. The boat soon vanished into the darkness, fading from view, and Sophie shuddered, not sorry to see it go.

He rowed for a good thirty minutes and Sophie didn’t see land. She began to sweat a little, wondering if he’d miscalculated and dumped them in the middle of the ocean— _If that’s the case, I’m pushing him to the sharks before he pushes me_ —but then she saw some fuzzy lights in the distance.

They pulled up to a small sandy bank with some streetlights far off in the distance. She stepped out of the lifeboat—and promptly fell over into the shallows when her wobbly legs collapsed under herself. She pulled herself to her feet, took a wobbly, sloshy step and then fell to her knees. “It’s just sea legs,” she told herself, remembering what her dad had told her about yachting. “Come on, get up, Sophie.” She looked up to see the Winter Soldier standing on the sand ten feet away, looking back at her. She couldn’t see his face, of course, but his disgust practically radiated off of him. Her face burned and she forced herself to her feet and stomped out of the shallows. She did this more to keep a steady balance on the ground but if she looked tough and pissed off…well, she wouldn’t argue.

“Where are we going?” she asked him as she followed him up the beach, passing thickets of trees on their way. He was silent and she nodded and said, “Right. I love that place.”

“Be quiet,” he said.

She continued, ignoring him even though she knew she was asking to get hit. “In fact, it happens to be my most favorite place to go—”

“ _Quiet_ ,” he hissed, grabbing her and pulling her into the pitch black shade of the trees. His metal arm pressed tightly against Sophie’s mouth and his other arm wrapped around her chest, holding her tightly against him, keeping her from bolting or making any noise. She froze, her heart rate spiking in fear. What had alarmed him? Something that made him go on high alert was either her best friend or even more horrible than him.

She heard the sounds of loud, raucous singing and talking coming down the beach. Her chin touched her chest as he leaned forward, bending over her, to peer through the trees. She saw that it was a large group of men—about ten or twelve of them. Carrying flashlights and clinking glass bottles, singing in English, which Sophie thought was weird. Didn’t Cubans speak Spanish? As they neared, they somehow coincidentally picked the bit of beach right in front of them and began dragging driftwood into a circle. They both watched as one of the men lit a lighter and then started a fire, burning himself a few times in the process as his friends laughed uproariously. It was clear they were all sloppy drunk. As the fire picked up pace, it illuminated their faces as they sat around the fire and she realized with surprise that they were all…white frat boys. Large, beefy, wearing tank tops or no shirts at all with board shorts and backwards baseball caps. It wasn’t spring break season but perhaps summer break had already started for colleges?

* * *

 

The Winter Soldier cursed to himself. He would have really preferred to not attract any attention but now… He wasn’t stupid enough to think that if they stepped out from under the trees and continued down the beach that the men—boys, really—would leave them alone. The girl alone would make them want to bother them. Idiotic boys like these, their main pleasures in life seemed to be attacking young women and starting brawls with other men to…what? Prove their masculinity? The Winter Soldier didn’t give a damn. Petty pursuits. All he knew was that they were annoying and now he would have to deal with them. They had no skill and he could get rid of them all, of course, but they had the advantage in numbers and they all had the large, beefy look of athletes. They wouldn’t make a scratch on him but the girl might get hurt in the process.

Unless…unless he distracted them so that they were caught off guard when he quickly stepped in to pick them all off. His mind began forming a plan, revolving around his previous assumption: that the girl alone would make them want to bother them.

Of course she would. She was young, small, and a female. She was the perfect prey for them. And once they were all suitably distracted and had their guards let down…he would slink in for the kill. Hopefully this would keep the scene quiet and simple. No fighting, no yelling, no screams.

“Don’t you dare scream,” he whispered once to the girl before giving her an almighty shove.

* * *

 

“Don’t you dare scream,” he whispered in Sophie’s ear before pushing her so hard she went flying, stumbling out from under the trees and nearly tripping over her own feet. She stood upright, bewildered, not understanding what the hell was going on. She turned back and looked at the trees—but she couldn’t detect anyone in the shadows. Of course, he could be standing there, still as ice, watching…but…

Why had he done this?

“Look, it’s a chick!” At this, every single man in the circle looked up at her, faces showing a wide variety of emotions: surprise, clear confusion, and then lecherous joy lighting up.

“Is she real or am I drunk?” one of the guys said, waving his bottle around wildly.

“Who cares if she’s not real, she’s _hot_ ,” another one said, staring at her.

“Come over here, sweetheart, come party with us,” yet another said.

Sophie stood frozen, completely unsure as to what to do now. He’d told her not to scream—did he anticipate her getting hurt? Was this a _punishment_ for her? Getting attacked by these guys? Her blood ran cold at the thought. _He wouldn’t…even he wouldn’t…_ would _he?!_

She couldn’t move her feet but that didn’t matter. One of the guys got up, grabbed her arm and yanked her towards the circle of guys. “No—” she started, weakly trying to pull away, “No th—”

“Aw, come on, lighten up, it’s a party!” he said, his grip tightening. He wasn’t planning on letting her go, she realized with despair.

The boy shoved her down and her legs collapsed under her so that she hit the ground with a thud. She sat there, looking wildly around for any sign of the Winter Soldier. What the hell was he doing? He couldn’t _really_ be planning on letting her attacked or whatever by these guys, could he? She was aware that all of the guys were staring at her, some slightly slack-jawed and glassy-eyed because of the alcohol, some intense, and some just looking…creepy. They hadn’t done anything yet but she sensed the feeling of anticipation in the air, as if they were all building to something. She wondered with foreboding why they weren’t any other girls with them. Why were they traveling alone like some male wolf pack?

She tried to stand up to leave but one of them immediately grabbed her arm and yanked her back down. “Hey, hey, slow down, sweetie!”

“I need to go,” she said desperately. “I need to—”

“Just hang out for a while,” he said, edging closer. “Where are you from?”

After that, all hell broke loose. The questions were volleyed at her with such speed that she couldn’t possibly answer even if she’d _wanted_ to. They kept crowding closer and closer, touching her, their words nice but their tones and expressions not nice _at all_. She was reminded of wolf herding sheep except in this case there were about twelve wolves and one sheep. She wished she had a gun (and that she knew how to fire a gun) but would a gun even have done anything against twelve people?

“Whatcha doing all alone out here?”

“You got a boyfriend?”

“—so pretty—”

“—have a drink—”

“What’s your name?”

“You all alone out here?”

Someone stroked her hair and Sophie shuddered. “Let me go,” she said, trying to sound commanding. “I need to go—my boyfriend is down the beach, he’s just getting something—” Her lie sounded thin and cheap even to her own ears so she wasn’t surprised to that none of them bought her BS.

“Nice try, babe,” one of them said.

Sophie decided that was enough. She lashed out, punching the guy closest to her in the face and trying to get to her feet. “Let me go, you creeps!”

“You—you bitch!” he said, touching his bloody lip and looking at the blood in amazement as if he’d never been hit by a girl before. “We’re just being _nice_.”

“You’re being freaks,” she spat but it was too late. Her punch had given them the excuse they needed to be the obviously not nice guys they were.

“Hold her down,” she heard one of them say and someone grabbed her hair from behind, yanking her down. The back of her head burst into little pinpricks of pain and angry tears sprang to her eyes. She struggled to sit up but now several of them were holding every limb down. She couldn’t even scream because one of them smothered her mouth. Tears leaked out of her eyes and she faintly thought, _Why the hell does this keep happening to me?!_

Then everything seemed to happen all at once. She was aware of someone moving very quickly on the outskirts of the group—and then the guys were loosening their grips on her, letting out quiet, shocked cries, and one by one they all dropped like bags of sand. The last one covering her mouth eased up on her, looking around fearfully. “What the f—?” he started before he suddenly slumped forward, falling on top of Sophie.

This was too much for her. Stifling a shriek of disgust, she rolled out from under his weight and then pulled herself to a sitting position. The fire crackled on, illuminating the scene around her with an eerie warmth: the bodies of all twelve men littered the ground. And the Winter Soldier stood five feet away, hands clenched at his sides. He’d disposed of all of them in under two minutes.

“Are they—are they dead?” she asked, faltering. He’d brutally killed the last man who’d tried to attack her. Had he murdered all of these as well?

“Knocked out,” he said.

She felt relieved. Not that they didn’t deserve to die for what they had been planning on doing—but she didn’t feel like leaving a trail of bodies behind her everywhere she went. It made her feel sick.

All of a sudden, the enormity of the situation hit her: what they had been about to do, her very real fear that the Winter Soldier was going to let it happen… She let out a gasp she’d been holding in and then stifled a sob with her mouth, her eyes wide, tears flowing silently down her face. “I thought—I th-thought you were going to—to let them—”

“I know what you thought,” he said. But that was all he offered. He turned and began walking down the beach in the direction they had been initially headed in. And Sophie had no choice but to wipe away her tears, take a deep breath, collect her emotions, and then follow after him.

They walked for what felt like hours. Sophie didn’t know how much time had passed, only that the first rays of the sun were coming up and the long strip of beach had come to an end, when he suddenly halted and said, “Here.”

Sophie looked around. The beach ended in front of them, changing to a rocky, slightly craggy fifteen-foot-high cliff. To their left, a tiny road seemed to lead to a small town in the distance. “What?” she asked, confused. “Here? Where, the cliff?”

That seemed to be the end of his patience with her, not that he’d ever seemed to have much to start with. He grabbed her shoulders in a tight, painful grasp and when she cried out, he dug his fingers in even deeper, hissing, “ _Quiet_.”

She bit her lip against the pain so hard that she tasted blood. His metal fingers were digging into her shoulder blades painfully. They began an awkward, painful march down the silent, misty road, the morning rays not having touched the land yet. Sophie shivered against the slight chill in her flimsy t-shirt and she felt him take a hand off of her shoulder, now only steering with one hand. Unfortunately it was the metal hand that remained, which felt way more painful and restricting. She almost preferred it when he dragged her behind because at least that way she knew where she stood with him. Right now, with him behind her, her back and neck exposed to him… She felt vulnerable, her skin hot and prickly, as if she expected a dagger in the back at any moment.

They passed small one-story buildings all pressed tightly next to each other, painted in pastel colors that Sophie could just barely make out in the pale morning light. Birds chirped somewhere but she didn’t have time to enjoy the pretty scene because he walked her at such a fast, clipping pace. She felt like a bad little kid who was being frog-marched into timeout by her very angry parent. Or a pet being forced to take a walk.

Or just dead meat, really.

He suddenly violently turned her to the right and pushed her into a teeny, tiny alley. It was so narrow that they definitely couldn’t walk side-by-side. He pushed her in front of him and they only stopped when he yanked her to a halt (by grabbing the collar of her shirt and temporarily choking her) in front of a rickety wooden door set into the pale blue wall of the building on their left. He pushed the door and it swung open without any resistance. He shoved her inside and stepped in, closing the door and dead-bolting it behind him.

Sophie stumbled forward and coughed as she inhaled a mouthful of dusty air the wrong way. Then she sneezed three times in a row. Rubbing her watering eyes, she glanced around the room. It really was one room: small with whitewashed walls, ceiling, and floor that were chipped and peeling. One small window was set into the wall that overlooked the street but a dark burlap curtain covered it, letting in only tiny slivers of pale early morning light. A huge, colorful, woven rug covered the ground but it looked dirty and stained. The stains were rust colored, which made Sophie feel very uneasy about their origin. A small table with two chairs sat in one corner, a large wooden bucket in another, and a hard, flat cot made out woven straw shoved into a third corner. The whole room smelled stale and dusty and was uncomfortably warm. That was it.

Oh, and there was a small symbol painted in faded red paint on the door: a skull with tentacles coming out of it, surrounded by a circle. Sophie got shivers just looking at it. She didn’t know what it signified but it was definitely creepy.

“Where are we?” she asked.

He chose not to respond, instead stumping over to the woven cot and heavily sitting down in it. Sophie slowly sat down in one of the rickety chairs by the table. Then she let out a shriek when the chair suddenly collapsed and she hit the ground. She groaned on the ground. _Did I do something horrible to someone in a past life to make the universe hate me so much_? she wondered miserably as she stood up, rubbing her aching butt and gingerly sitting down in the other chair. Absolutely nothing seemed to be going right for her. She so wished she’d been hit by a semi-truck on her way home from the grocery store this past Friday. It would have been a lot less painful than this terrible ordeal.

“At least tell me when we’re going to leave here,” she said, hating the pleading note that entered her voice. He slowly looked up and spoke in a monotone voice: “Tonight.” Then he folded his arms and turned to look in the other direction, sitting so still it creeped her out.

For once he wasn’t staring at her and she wasn’t crying, throwing up, or being hit, so she took the chance to really study him. She’d avoided _really_ looking at him these past few days but she was hot and bored out of her mind, so she shrugged and thought, _What the hell. Better to know my enemy than not, right?_

He was tall, taller than Sophie (who was around 5’4”) and looked to be about 6’2”…but she figured his black combat boots added an inch or two of height. So he was probably around six feet exactly. He wore all black clothes that looked more suited to a war zone than…whatever it was he was doing with her so far. Bulky black pants that tapered near his ankles, covered with pockets and rubbery-looking pads on his knees. A heavy black top that looked like it was made out of horizontal black leather straps covered his entire torso and right arm. Thick, heavy rubbery-looking black straps came down over his shoulders, meeting a wide strap from the same material that wrapped around his broad upper chest. A belt made out of the same material encircled his waist, covered with buckles and small holsters that stored god knew what kind of weapons. His right hand was bare but his left hand—the metal hand—wore a black fingerless glove for some reason. His metal arm was made out of interlocking, gleaming silver pieces that Sophie had seen firsthand move as he moved, as if they were directly connected to his mind. They probably were. She couldn’t see it now because he was turned in the other direction but she knew there was a red star painted onto the shoulder of his metal arm. She wondered how he’d gotten the arm. What had happened to his proper, human arm? She hoped it had been eaten off by a shark.

He was definitely powerfully built, with the muscles of a fighter, but he didn’t look beefy and thick-necked like those frat boys had. Slightly wavy, dark brown hair hung to his shoulders, framing his face. And then, of course, the infernal face mask and goggles that obscured every inch of his face except for his forehead. His neck wasn’t even exposed which was a pity because Sophie would have liked to stab it sometime.

She wasn’t normally a violent person at all—she apologized when she swatted flies and she had been known to chase an ant around for fifteen minutes, trying to scoop it onto a slip of paper to throw outside—but she felt she was becoming increasingly violent when she was near him. It was like he was infecting her…a plague upon her soul. Or something like that. A wave of fury and pitch-black hatred rose up in her like bile as she scrutinized him and she wished to god that she had the ability to make him hurt. Make him feel pain. Make _him_ scream and cry, for once. Show him what it felt like to be powerless and at the mercy of someone who didn’t show any mercy at all.

She had to eventually look away to calm herself down.

There wasn’t a clock in the room so Sophie had no idea how much time was passing but it seemed to tick by in a slow, syrupy fashion. The slivers of light behind the window got brighter as the day marched on, the burlap curtain glowing a lighter brown, and the room began to get hotter and hotter until Sophie felt like she was cooking in an oven. She pinched her t-shirt and held it away from herself, fanning her face. She couldn’t even imagine how hot he felt in his heavy fatigues but if he was, he didn’t give any indication of it at all.

“Got a fan?” she asked weakly. “Or some new clothes?” She didn’t expect an answer, she just needed something to say to break through this heavy heat or she was going to go insane.

* * *

 

The girl didn’t look well at all. She was thin—thinner, that was, considering she’d been slim to start with—from not eating well the past few days and her face was sweaty and flushed right now, her dark brown hair sticking to her neck and forehead. Her eyes had a strange glaze to them that made him wonder if she was suffering from some sort of injury-, malnutrition-, or heat-induced neurological deficit. She fanned herself limply, holding her shirt away from her body.

Seeing the blue bruises running up and down her arms and the bruises on her face, he remembered that he needed to find things to cover them up with. Her clothes looked lived-in and dirty by now too. It wouldn’t do if he delivered some mangy gutter rat to his handlers.

* * *

 

He stood up suddenly, startling Sophie out of her stupor (she had been daydreaming about summers past spent lounging on her sofa, reading beach reads while eating Italian ices). “I’m going out,” he said slowly. “Don’t try to leave this room.” The _I’ll know if you do—and I’ll make you pay_ was implied and hung between them like a lethal sword.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

Naturally he ignored her and left the room, closing the door behind him. Sophie got up and dead-bolted it. It wouldn’t keep him out—he could probably punch through these walls if he wanted to—but it made her feel safer. Now that he was gone, she could finally be in some peace. She tentatively sniffed her shirt and then recoiled, making a face. She smelled like sweat, blood, and general uncleanliness. Her yoga pants stuck to her legs like a second skin in this heat and they felt unclean and gross too. What she wouldn’t give for a hot shower and some clean clothes and underwear…and a nice meal…and a nice book, to pass the time…

_Why does kidnapping have to be such a harsh process? I’d probably be much more compliant with him if he allowed me some showers and some books to read._

She knew he would have murdered her if he found out but she couldn’t help herself. She sat down on the straw cot near the window and lifted the corner of the curtain, peeking out onto the street.

* * *

 

He stole the clothes first, mostly because he realized he needed to cover his _own_ fatigues before going into a shop. Luckily for him, most people hung their washing out on lines outside their homes so stealing clothes was unbelievably easy. He grabbed an oversized hoodie for himself and pulled it on, zipping it up all the way. He tied his hair back to look less conspicuous and then he grabbed some clothes for the girl. He had no idea what to get her but it had to cover her body. This was slightly problematic, as most of the clothing hanging was very summery: thin dresses and tank tops and shorts. Cursing the seasonal timing of this kidnapping, it took him fifteen minutes to find some pants and a long-sleeved top. There must have been several women living in the house because the clothing varied in sizes. He didn’t know what size she wore but she was tiny…so he grabbed the smallest clothes he saw, the ones that would fit a teenage girl. He also grabbed an oversized jacket for her, always planning ahead.

Once he had her clothes balled up and stored properly inside his bulky hoodie, he carefully looked around to make sure that the girl hadn’t somehow followed him—he knew she hadn’t but he was wary of her now, as she seemed to have suicidal tendencies and a penchant for disobeying him—and when he was sure she was nowhere near, he pulled his mask and goggles off and pocketed them. He stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled off, staring straight ahead and avoiding eye contact with anyone. He needed to look casual but he also need to be efficient. It wasn’t easy. He wasn’t a good actor. That wasn’t his job. He was trained to be the silent muscle, not the spy who could con his or her way into places. He didn’t speak, he shot.

He ducked into a local-owned drugstore and wandered over to the makeup section. His neck prickled uncomfortably and he had to resist the urge to rub it. His shoulders hunched over slightly as he stared blankly at the shelves of makeup. What the hell was he looking for again? Oh yeah—something to cover her face bruises.

He didn’t feel right here, in this brightly-lit, clean place, surrounded by posters of pretty, glossy women with bright-colored eyelids and pink lips. It made him feel completely disoriented. He spent a confused few minutes scanning the rows of colored things for something that resembled skin. Finally he found that section—but this was even more bewildering. He knelt and read the labels, not understanding. Foundation, concealer, bronzer, matte powder, BB cream, CC cream, toner, tinted moisturizer… What the hell did this garbage mean? What was he supposed to get her?

He decided to get the foundation because the bottle was the biggest. But then he had to choose a _shade_. He was so impatient by this stage that he almost grabbed any bottle at random—but then he realized that it would look ridiculous if she rubbed dark brown liquid onto her fair face. He scanned the pale shades, not understanding why there were so many. White was white. What the hell was the difference between “ivory” and “porcelain” and “bisque” and “buff”? He was so irritated and disturbed by now that he could barely remember what color her skin was. This was too complicated. He grabbed one of the light shades, slipped it into his pocket, and vanished out of the store without being seen by anyone.

He had no idea how females navigated this world every day. He could sit as still as a statue on a hot rooftop in a desert for hours with his eyes trained through the eyepiece of a sniper and take out a man from an incredible distance…but picking a makeup shade had undone him.

* * *

 

She had been waving at a young toddler on the street and playing peek-a-boo with her when he came back. Her heart and stomach clenched in fear when she heard the door open but she forced herself to breathe and kept playing with the girl, sticking out her tongue and wiggling it, when he yanked her back with so much force that she went flying.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he snarled.

 _Do not cry_ , she instructed herself fiercely, sitting up and rubbing her stinging left shoulder blade. Her eyes stung with pained tears but she took a deep breath and swallowed them. “I was looking outside,” she said slowly.

She couldn’t see his face but she could practically feel the fury radiating off of him. “I told you—”

“YOU TOLD ME NOT TO LEAVE AND I DIDN’T!” she suddenly screamed, feeling like something was bursting inside her brain. She took a deep, shaky breath, trying to calm down, and slowly said, “And I didn’t leave.” Her voice was trembling and she was having a hard time looking him in the eye; her eyes kept darting at him and then dropping to his boots, hands shaking slightly. “So give clearer instructions next time.”

The next thirty seconds were the most tense and stressful thirty seconds of Sophie’s entire life. There was a deep, terrifying silence that stretched between them and Sophie prepared herself for him ripping her throat out or at least knocking her out—but to her intense surprise, nothing happened. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stood there while Sophie nervously stared at the ground in front of his feet, wondering what was going to happen next. She still remembered: _“If you ever speak to me like that again, I will rip your throat out.”_

Something did eventually hit her in the face—but it wasn’t his face or his boot. It was a… Sophie blinked down at her lap. A bundle of clothes?

“Change,” he said, his voice robotic again. There was no hint of anger in it.

Sophie looked up at him, completely bewildered. She’d just screamed at him and defied him horribly. Wasn’t he going to attack her? He’d only been too willing earlier. But he had already turned away, his back to her.

She stared at his back, uncomprehending, and noticed for the first time that he was wearing a baggy hoodie that hid his vest and metal arm. For some reason, that calmed her down. Something about seeing the metal arm hidden made him look more normal. That and the fact that…her eyebrows rose when she realized he had tied his hair back into a pony.

Then she realized he meant for her to change _now_. She was about to protest—but then she wondered there really was no reason to protest. She wanted to change into new clothes like _yesterday_ and she was sure he wouldn’t turn around. He barely responded to her on a normal basis, why would he turn around to stare at her while she changed? She was becoming convinced he wasn’t actually a man. Just an android. He probably didn’t have that function that made people attractive to him.

She was half-disappointed that there were no undergarments but half-relieved because the thought of him guessing her size and… _No. Just no._ She pulled on the loose olive-green khakis with the tapered ankles and pulled on the long-sleeved top. It was incredibly tight and clung to her skin. Not great for this heat. She felt overexposed in the top—she didn’t normally wear things this tight—so she was relieved there was a loose hoodie to accompany it. Ignoring the heat, she zipped it all the way up and pulled her Converse back on. Then she neatly folded her own clothes and placed them on the table.

“Done,” she announced.

He didn’t move.

She sighed internally. _Great. Back to the silent show until tonight._ She collapsed in a chair and crossed her arms, staring at the opposite wall, waiting for tonight. Two empty shells locked in one small room together.


	8. Chapter 8

They moved out when the sky turned dark. The light in the room had already been dim to begin with and it only got progressively darker as the day wore on. Sophie thought that this felt like the longest day of her entire life. She could hear the busy sounds of street life right outside the window and she wondered what would happen if she suddenly started screaming for help. Probably no one would hear her—or if they did, he would just kill them and spirit her away. She couldn’t decide if she was being a coward for not attempting any more escape attempts or if she was being courageous for trying to keep others out of danger.

Maybe it was a little bit of both.

Once the sky was almost pitch black, he silently stood up, fluid as water, and said, “Let’s go.”

He stood there, immobile, making it clear that he intended for Sophie to go first. She took a deep breath, grabbed her clothes, and headed to the door. They stepped out into the alley and he led Sophie down the alley in the opposite direction from the way that they had initially come. The alley was empty of any movement, except for the fluttering clothes hanging on lines above them. When they stepped out onto the main road at the other end—where lots of people were—Sophie nearly let out a shriek of shock when he suddenly wrapped his arm—his metal arm—around her waist and tugged her close to him.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

“Shut up,” was his response. There was a pause and then— “We’re going to act like a couple. You’re going to make it believable.”

 _Or else_ , Sophie finished his sentence. In a sick way, it made sense. The streets were crowded now (people in Cuba didn’t go to bed early, it seemed) and he couldn’t steer her down the street the way he had this morning ( _God—was that really_ this _morning?_ ). Someone would surely notice. A couple, walking with their arms around each others’ waists, on the other hand…

Sophie slipped an arm around his waist and he jerked suddenly, as if she’d static shocked him. “What—”

It was the first time Sophie had seen him betray even an ounce of surprise and she smiled grimly to herself. So he was unnerved by touch. She filed this information away for later and said, “You said to make it believable. Couples walk with _both_ arms around each others’ waists.” _Has he seriously never seen a couple_? she wondered.

He nodded once, accepting her explanation, and they began walking down the street, keeping to themselves. Sophie didn’t understand how he planned on walking through the streets with a mask and goggles—but she soon realized that his hood thrown up cast such a deep shadow on his face that no one could even tell. Not that anyone glanced in their direction anyway. People were too busy with their own lives to worry about them and his build was more than enough of a warning to any criminals not to mess with him—or the girl his arm was clamped around.

His grip was painfully tight and she dug her nails into his side as retaliation but was disappointed to realize that his clothing was so thick that he didn’t seem to notice. Either that or he _did_ feel it and it just wasn’t painful to him.

He kept them moving at an alarming pace and Sophie said, in a low voice, “If you’re trying to avoid attention, you probably shouldn’t _sprint_ through the streets.”

His arm tightened painfully and she let out a gasp—but he did slow down.

And then Sophie was strolling down the streets, arm in arm with the Winter Soldier, being towed to some secret…whatever, while taking in the streets of Cuba around her. It was the most surreal, insane thing she had ever done. _When are we going to reach the limit_? she wondered dimly as they strolled. _I keep thinking that no,_ this _is the craziest thing that’s happened to me. And then he goes and tops it with something else._

Cuban nightlife on the streets was interesting but it didn’t look as brightly-lit or friendly as pictures of places such as Spain and Rio de Janeiro that Sophie had seen. She’d never left the country so it was possible that she was just being naïve or ethnocentric—but still, the area they were walking through didn’t seem nice. People were on the streets, it wasn’t as if it was abandoned, but there were a lot of dark alleys and corners and there weren’t many open shops or places to step into. She could hear people talking and laughing—but in a muted way, in their own huddles and clumps. It didn’t seem like very inviting street life. She supposed a part of was that this area seemed to have much more poverty than probably larger towns.

She shrank into the Winter Soldier’s side without even thinking as they passed a very large group of men standing around smoking outside a dark shop. They didn’t even glance in her direction but the memory of what the frat boys had tried to do to her was still fresh in her mind. She didn’t even realize she was clutching onto him until the men were out of sight and she suddenly let go of him, feeling almost faint with humiliation. Had she really clung to _him_ for _protection_? He was ten times more likely to hurt her than any random group of men! _He_ had been the one to thrust her in front of the frat boys in the first place!

Still, she couldn’t deny that a tiny part of her—a teeny, tiny, minuscule part of her—was glad he was with her. He was dangerous and violent but he wasn’t likely to hurt her on the streets and Sophie, like most women, automatically became wary and afraid when walking through dark streets at night. Not that she’d done much (or any) of that back home in D.C.—it had been too big of a risk for her, as most things had been. But his presence was still comforting in that sense. She tried to not think about it too hard because if she did, it began to make even less sense to her in her mind.

They wandered through a maze of small streets and alleys, picking up speed as the night stretched on and there were fewer people on the streets. Sophie had no idea what—or where—or to whom—he was taking her to but she soon realized that they were leaving the town. They passed through the outskirts of the small town, leaving the streetlamps behind, and began walking down a small dirt road. He immediately let go of her waist and she let go of him at the same time. Neither of them could wait to get away from each other, it seemed. That annoyed Sophie slightly; what reason did _he_ have for wanting to get away from her? Not that she wanted him near her, but really, he was acting like _she’d_ been the one to kidnap him.

He veered off of the dirt path and headed towards a cluster of trees. Sophie stopped and stared after him, not understanding. Was he really going to the forest? What the hell was in there? He didn’t look over his shoulder to see if she had followed and she wondered if she was supposed to—or if this was a good time to run away. She took a step back and squinted through the darkness, trying to gauge where he had gone. He seemed to have vanished into the dark thicket of trees. She took another step backward and was _just_ steeling herself to turn and sprint back towards town—when a small golden light flared up through the trees and a motorcycle slowly rumbled out from the trees and onto the road.

 _Where the hell did this come from? Did he pre-plan his entire route?_ The thought made Sophie’s stomach churn queasily. The thought that he had spent time _preparing_ to kidnap her…that while she had been biking to the grocery store and going to work at the coffee shop and reading books, some strange, dangerous man had been actively _working_ to rip her away from her home…

Her heart was beating strangely as she approached him. Her face was unusually calm but inside, she felt waves of fear, rage, and—strangely enough—sadness crashing in her. She felt disgusted and frightened and angry, yes, but she also felt sad…sad for the innocent girl who had been going about her quiet, lonely life, not realizing what was around the corner. Sophie felt almost protective about her past self, wishing she could go back and somehow warn that girl of what was about to come. About what was being carefully, disturbingly _planned_ for her.

She climbed onto the back of the motorcycle and clasped her hands around his waist, trying her best to hold on as lightly as possible, to avoid touching him. However, when he pushed off and roared down the road, she instantly tightened her grip and pressed her face into his back to avoid falling off the motorcycle.

She suddenly became aware that she was in a great position for ruining his plans by simply…dying. At the speed he was going, all she had to do was let go of him and allow herself to fall backward off the motorcycle. Hit the ground at sixty miles per hour. The thought was faintly enticing and she spent a long, dark moment wondering if it was actually worth it. What waited for her at the end of this ride? She had no idea and that terrified her, made her break out into a nervous sweat and made her mouth taste acrid with fear. She didn’t want to die but even more than not wanting to die, she didn’t want to die a slow, painful death…which was possibly what awaited her at the end of this journey.

So was dying here possibly worth it?

Her fingers twitched slightly, her grip loosening a bit. But then she remembered her vow to herself: she would not kill herself. She would not give up that way. She would face whatever was coming with her head held high (or…at least _reasonably_ high, since she still was a shy and timid person generally). After being scared her whole life, the least she could do was spend her last days—moments—whatever— _pretending_ to not be scared.

Even though her stomach churned, her body trembled at the thought of what came next, and she felt a bit like puking.

His hoodie smelled like tobacco smoke and she vaguely wondered who it had belonged to before he had, of course, stolen it. They sped off the dirt road and onto a more paved road, one that wound very close to the coastline. Sophie could almost hear the ocean crashing somewhere to her right and she could smell that rusty, salty smell that came from the sea. She lifted her head, her hair streaming behind her like a fluttering flag, and took a deep breath. She’d always loved the ocean but she didn’t visit it often. She’d read about it often enough, however. She wished she could visit this sea under better circumstances.

 _If I survive this, I will come back_ , she promised herself. _If I survive this…_ She squeezed her eyes shut. _I will travel to every country in the world. I will buy a car. I will buy a computer. I’ll do everything that scared me before._

If she was given a second chance at life, she would make sure she didn’t waste it again.

They drove along the coastline, encountering very few cars, for quite a while. Sophie couldn’t tell how long exactly. All she knew was that it was long enough for her cheeks and nose to feel icy-cold with the cool wind rushing past them, despite the fact that it was a muggy, hot night if you stood still.

He eventually pulled off the main road and headed inland, the motorcycle bouncing over a rough dirt road through an enormous field. There were no lights in any direction; just the dark night sky, the wind, and the smell of cigarettes from his hoodie. He pulled to a stop and Sophie immediately let go of him and jumped off of the motorcycle. This was a mistake—she immediately fell, tripping over wobbly legs and dropping to one knee with a thud. She squeezed her eyes shut in both pain and humiliation and spent one second in a strange Tim Tebow sort of pose, asking, _Why, God? Why me? Just…why?_

The least fate could allow her was to be graceful on her feet around her kidnapper, who moved with terrifying—and annoying—grace and precision. Like some sort of enormous, lethal jungle cat. Sophie was scared of it but also envious, deep down. Of course _she_ had to look like a klutzy fool in front of him.

“Get up.” He roughly grabbed her left shoulder arm by the armpit—“Ow!” she wailed as the bruises on her arm exploded in pain—and jerked her to her feet. “Walk.” He prodded the back of her neck roughly and she obediently walked forward, rubbing the back of her neck, wishing she could stab _his_ , and squinting through the darkness to see where the hell he was taking her.

When she saw it…her heart dropped. An airplane. A small one, a private plane, meant for only a couple of people. Sitting silently in the field, windows dark. She’d always known this was an option—leaving Cuba and going even further away from home—but she’d fervently hoped it wouldn’t happen. The further she got from home, the less chance she had of ever making it home alive.

“Where is this taking us?” she squawked, suddenly refusing to walk anymore. She did _not_ want to board that plane. He ignored the question, grabbed her arm roughly, and dragged her towards it. “Wait!” She tried to dig her heels into the ground. “I don’t want—just _tell me where the damn plane is taking me_ —”

He swung around and slapped her. Her head snapped to the right and for a moment, she didn’t even feel it—just shock. Then her cheek began to sting and burn and she touched her face, feeling almost bewildered by his sudden violence. It had been a while since he’d really hit her—she’d almost forgotten…

 _No, you hadn’t. Admit it: you were just hoping he was softening toward you. You never_ learn _do you, Sophie? It took being run out of one college for you to learn_ that _lesson—now it looks like it’s going to take being murdered by this man to learn_ this _lesson._

She let him pull her towards the plane, her hand pressed to her cheek, still unable to speak. He’d hit her so many times now but she didn’t think she’d ever _really_ get used to the violence. She might come to expect it but on the inside—the part of her that had been raised properly by her mother and father, the part of her which had learned that a man was never to hit her _ever_ —she would always feel a sudden, cold shock at it.

Of course…he _was_ the bad guy. She didn’t think her father’s lessons on how a man should treat her really applied to bad guys. That was the whole point of them: they broke rules. All the rules.

Even if the bad guys in her romance novels always ended up being chivalrous, swoon-worthy romance leads…and never _actually_ hurt the heroine or damsel…

 _Snap out of it_ , she told herself furiously. _This isn’t a book. THIS ISN’T FANTASY._

A man was leaning against the plane, smoking, staring off into the distance. When he saw them coming he dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his boot. He wore all black, had olive-tan skin, and floppy hair. A slash went down his right cheek. He didn’t even seem to register Sophie, asking, “Ready?” to the Winter Soldier. He nodded once and the man yanked on a hatch on the plane’s side, pulling a small ladder down. Sophie climbed it and entered the plane.

It was dimly lit, had no windows, and only eight seats, four down each side. It looked like a tiny version of a commercial plane (minus the windows, of course). She sat down in one and when the Winter Soldier made to buckle her in, she tempted fate—and her life—and slapped his hands away, snapped, “I can do it myself.” She quickly looked down at the buckle, hoping he would walk away without retaliating. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she exhaled in relief as he silently stepped away from her.

He didn’t buckle himself in, stretching his legs out in front of him. It was the closest Sophie had ever seen him get to “relaxing” and even then this pose could _hardly_ be called relaxed. More like…rigidly lax. The other man clambered into the plane, pulled the stairs and door up and shut, and locked the door. Then he ducked his head and went through a small door in the front, slamming it shut. The plane’s engines roared to life and they began to move down the field. Sophie couldn’t see but she could feel them moving and picking up speed—and then suddenly they were racing down the field. She leaned back in her seat, clutching her armrests and closing her eyes, trying to breathe—

And then the plane was lifting, tilting into the sky. Her stomach pressed back against her spine and she kept her eyes closed and her breathing measured until she felt the plane even out slightly. Once she was sure the plane felt reasonably horizontal, she opened her eyes and looked around. The Winter Soldier was still staring at the door to the pilot’s cockpit, sitting incredibly still.

“Wish I had a window to look out of,” she said to no one in particular. She watched him very closely and sighed and said, “Sure would be nice to have something to look out through…” He didn’t respond. They sat in silence for a few more minutes and then, emboldened by the fact that they were on a plane and what could he _really_ do to her on a plane, she loudly asked, “So, do you not know how to fly a plane? Or did you just feel like being chauffeured?”

“Shut up.” He sounded bored. She paused, watching his hands, his every movement, waiting to see if he was going to hurt her—but he didn’t move. He genuinely seemed like he wasn’t interested in hearing her talk.

“Are you ever going to take your mask and goggles off?” she asked. “I mean, who am I going to tell _now_?” She chuckled to herself, feeling almost…hysterical with the madness of what was happening now. “I mean, let’s be honest. I’m never going home.”

_I’m never going home._

Until she’d said the words out loud…they hadn’t held any weight. She’d still clung to the belief that she would somehow find a way home.

But now— _now—_

Trapped in a plane with a murderous kidnapper—

Heading to some unknown destination—

With no money or passport—

 _I’m never going home_. She touched her mouth and whispered, “I’m never going home.” She felt the full force of the words, how they pressed down on her windpipe and eyes and shoulders, threatening to suffocate her and blind her and crush her. She thought about her parents—her well-meaning, very-dense parents who’d never known what to really do with her—and felt an enormous crush of shock and grief. She was never…going to see them again?

She closed her eyes and mouthed, “I’m so sorry.” She didn’t know who she was talking to; her parents, for disappearing…or to herself, for finally giving up the last hope she’d clung to?

When she looked up, she noticed that the Winter Soldier’s head was imperceptibly turning away from her—almost as if he’d been watching her. She suddenly felt very tired and settled back into her seat, closing her eyes and willing herself to fall asleep. And fall asleep she did, falling prey to the darkness that swept in with the almost-soothing rumbling of the engines beneath the plane.

_“I thought I was your friend.” She stood in the doorway of someone’s room. The room was filled with blinding, golden sunlight. She couldn’t see who was sitting inside the room but she could feel the urgency inside her, the panicky, desperate need to see what she had done wrong and what she could to fix it._

_The person inside the room stood up and walked toward her and she averted her eyes, unable to look at them. Something about their face…it was too to look at them. She couldn’t think about it. The person gently grasped her hands and leaned in close and whispered, “You belong in jail.”_

_She looked up wildly but then the door was slamming shut in her face. She sank to the ground, crying, knocking softly on the door, calling, “Please, please, please, please…please forgive me…”_

_“I’ll always forgive you.” She was young and she was being scooped up into familiar arms and carried off to bed. Her mother sat on the edge of the bed and smiled but her eyes looked sad. “What am I going to do with you? My impossible, dangerous daughter.”_

_“Why am I dangerous?” she whispered._

_Her mother closed her eyes. “I can make it all better, if you’d like.”_

_"Make it go away,” she said, clutching her sheets._

_“Alright.” Her mother leaned down for a hug—but instead placed her warm, gentle hands on her throat. She started, trying to cry out in shock, but her mother was increasing pressure—it hurt to breathe—she couldn’t see out of the blurriness of her vision, but she thought she saw the outline of a man sitting at the edge of her bed—the hands on her throat felt like icy-cold, hard metal and she felt someone bend over near her and whisper, “If you ever talk to me that way again—”_

Sophie’s eyes flew open, shuddering. She jerked upright, stifling a gasp, and wildly looked around, heart pounding and breathing heavy. She was—where was she? Where the hell was she? As she looked around in a panic—hands massaging her pristine, untouched (thank heavens) throat—it took her a few minutes to calm down and realize where she was: in the plane with the Winter Soldier, heading to some random place.

“When are we getting there?” she asked blearily, rubbing her eyes, out of habit from her few vacations with her parents. Then she sighed as she realized she’d just asked the Winter Soldier and there was _no way_ —

“Two hours.”

Sophie raised her eyebrows. She’d gotten a response. That was amazing. She tentatively ventured to ask another one. “How long have I been out for?”

“Five hours.”

It had felt more like five minutes to her. She tried to recall the nightmare she’d been having…but even now it was slipping away from her. She sat puzzling for a moment and then gave up. She noticed that the Winter Soldier was holding some sort of small handheld device with a glowing screen and was staring intently at it. Her entire body seemed to go up in flames. So far on their travels, she hadn’t seen one piece of electronic equipment—but now here it was.

_Will I or won’t I?_

“What…is that?” she asked, her mouth dry, trying to sound casual. He didn’t reply and she almost shrieked with frustration. Out of every time he’d been silent, now was really _not_ the time to be silent. “What is that?” she asked more forcefully.

He slowly looked up at her intense tone and she cursed herself for not being more slick. He stared in her direction for a moment and then slowly said, “Tracks coordinates.”

“It’s tracking our coordinates?” Sophie asked, amazed that he’d even responded.

“Yes.”

“That’s—that all it does?” she asked, feeling crestfallen. “It doesn’t have anything else on it?”

“No,” was his terse reply. “Now shut up.”

_I guess I won’t._

She sank back into her seat, disappointed. It was a piece of technology, yes, but it didn’t have much use to her. She’d be able to see…which direction they were headed in at the moment. Not very useful considering at some point they’d arrive and she’d figure it out anyway. Unless knowing where they were headed _before_ they landed could somehow help her…? She thought about it for a moment but couldn’t come up with anything.

 _Besides, I’d have to get it away from him first—and then hold onto it long enough to do my thing._ She looked at him, the way his hands tightly clenched the device. She imagined those hands clenched just as tightly around her neck and shuddered. No thank you. That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

His head was bent over the device, face fixed directly over its screen, and she didn’t know if she was imagining it—since he was always still—but he looked slightly more rigid than normal. Was something wrong? She sat up in her seat just as the nose of the plane tilted downward slightly. She fell forward a bit, her buckle cutting into her stomach, and let out a yelp of pain. “What the hell?” she hissed, rubbing the sharp pain in her abdomen.

He was still staring at the device as the plane righted itself. Sophie shifted in her seat and then let out a shout as the plane dipped forward again and she fell against her belt again. “What the heck is going on?!” she shouted.

The Winter Soldier was suddenly on his feet in a fluid motion. The plane righted itself again, the tip gliding back up till the plane was level, but he was already kicking the door to the cockpit open and slamming it shut. Sophie stared at the closed door with growing apprehension. She leaned forward, listening carefully, but heard nothing but silence. What was going on? Should she be concerned— _more_ concerned than normal, that was?

She knew she shouldn’t—she knew he would be pissed if he caught her—but she couldn’t help herself. She unbuckled her seat belt and then began to tip-toe toward the door. She was only halfway there when the plane suddenly jerked and shuddered so hard that she actually fell over, hitting the ground on her bad arm. She rolled onto her back, squeezing her eyes against the pain, and then threw her arms out flat against the floor in terror as the plane began to shake and tremble quite violently. She’d been in planes for cross-country flights before—back when she’d been younger and less afraid of everything in the world—but she’d never encountered turbulence like this.

The plane rocked from side to side so violently that she was thrown against one wall. She hit her face on the wall and snagged her tooth on her lip. Tasting blood on her tongue, she sit up and heard the sounds of a struggle coming from the cockpit.

“Oh shit,” she said, her stomach dropping through her body, through the floor of the plane, straight down to whatever was thousands of feet below them. _Oh god oh god oh god oh god something is wrong, the plane is going to go down, we’re all going to die, this is not how I wanted to go, oh my god no_ —

She staggered to her feet just as the plane tipped forward alarmingly and she lost her balance and fell backwards, falling head over heels and slamming into the wall behind her that separated the cabin from the cockpit. She heard a deafening bang from the cockpit—a gunshot—and then suddenly she heard that horrible, screeching, blaring sound of the engines blasting full force and wind rushing past the plane and alarms blaring on the plane, the plane’s front pointing dangerously downward—

The plane was going down. Something came hurtling right at her face from the back of the plane and she threw herself to the side just as it clanged next to her. She looked at it. Some type of black plastic box. She grabbed it and shook it, trying to open it, but it was either locked too tightly or her hands were too slick with terrified sweat. Her entire body shook as the door next to her burst open, the door flying off of its hinges and landing on the other side. The Winter Soldier climbed out of the cockpit and grabbed Sophie.

He pulled her to a standing position but both of them hit the wall hard when the plane flipped towards its left wing, the wailing, shrieking alarm sound of the wind and the plane, the roar of the engines, the alarms and beeping of panic mode systems on the plane making it hard for Sophie to hear anything. Lights were flashing in the cabin—on the ground, on the door handle, over the seats—and a disembodied mechanical voice was saying something except it was in a different language—

“What are we going to do?” Sophie yelled over the noise to the Winter Soldier.

He responded by grabbing Sophie in his metal arm around the waist, holding her tightly like she was a sack of potatoes, lifting his foot—and then slamming it through the wall of the plane. He smashed a chunk of the wall out and immediately it was like a vacuum had formed. All Sophie could hear was the roaring and howling of the wind outside, the freezing cold air as the plane spun and hurtled to the Earth. The small hole grew wider as chunks of the airplanes wall began to rip away and they were yanked toward the hole. Sophie’s shriek was lost in the noise as he stood precariously near the edge of the hole, one hand holding onto her tightly, the other hand gripping the wall just as tightly.

To his credit, he managed to keep a hold on them as the plane spun to the dark Earth below. They were jostled and Sophie felt like her face and hands had frozen off. At one point, his grip slackened on her and she was almost ripped out of the hole, but he grabbed her just in time and hauled her back.

“What are you doing?” she shouted at him.

“You said you wanted to see the view below,” came his reply.

“What?” she screamed, hardly daring to believe it. Was he really choosing _now_ to be sarcastic and witty? Or was he—

Was he being _serious_?

“We’re going to jump?”

“Yes.”

“YOU’RE CRAZY!” she screamed.

She thought she felt him shrug. Then he took a step back—she braced herself for him to leap out the hole with her and plunge to both of their certain deaths—and then he suddenly took a running start and threw himself through the left. He smashed through an entire bit of wall and then they were out of the plane and free falling through the dark night sky, Sophie pressing her entire body into his, him holding onto a car-door-sized piece of airplane as they hurtled to the Earth or sky or whatever was below them. The winds around Sophie howled like possessed demons and she felt like her skin was being torn off by the icy-cold wind, the shrieking and whistling in her ears drowning out even the sound of her own heartbeat, her heart lodged in her throat like a bullet.

He’d calculated well. They didn’t fall from such a high height that they were immediately destroyed on impact.

But they still fell from an incredible a height—a height no one had ever dared to jump without a parachute before. Somehow, he managed to cram them onto the piece of airplane and they skidded and slid down the surface of whatever ground they were hitting—sparks sprayed all around them, singing their skin—and then they slammed straight into a boulder. Both of them flew into the air, sailing forty, fifty feet and slamming into the ground as the airplane crashed into the mountain above them and exploded in a ball of fire.

* * *

 

Ringing. Ringing in his ears.

He opened his eyes and all he could see and hear and feel and taste were ashes and grey and smoke and something dirty, gritty, salty, bloody. He tried to raise his head—tried to claw his way through the darkness—find the mission—

The mission—

The _girl_ —

Ringing. Something was clanging in his head. Alarms. Sirens.

His head dropped to the ground. Wet. Something was wet on his cheeks. Face. Tears? Blood? Dew?

Rain?

Blood?

Ringing.

Dust and fire in his mouth. Smoke. Tasting the smoke. He could taste the smoke.

_Get the—_

_Get the mission—_

His mind drifted, then. Detaching. Disconnected.

An island alone, afloat in the dark, glassy sea—

His eyes closed.

           

 

           


	9. Chapter 9

Sophie felt like she was a shattered toy…floating in something wet. And cold. And warm. All at once. Her eyes felt heavy and her mouth felt glued shut. She lay there on her back for a while, trying to get her bearings—trying to remember something, _anything_ …

Her fingers twitched slightly and she realized she was laying on grass. The world around her seemed deathly silent. She opened her mouth suddenly and inhaled, a rattling gasp that seemed to take in the entire world around her, and she felt like she was inhaling smoke and ashes and fire and death. Her mouth felt cottony and she could taste the crash in her mouth. The crash. Their plane. They’d gone down. Their plane had crashed. And they’d…jumped out.

She pried her eyes open and then flinched, shutting them against the powerful daylight. It had been a long time since she’d been out in proper daylight. She opened her eyes a slit and allowed the milky, grayish morning light to filter in, allowed her eyes to adjust. Once she felt like she’d adjusted well enough, she slowly opened them all the way. She lay there, spread-eagle, for a while, staring up at the milky sky. Pale blue and gray and white, like the veins on the inner arms of a dead person.

She winced. _Morbid, Sophie_. Everything around her was silent and still and she wondered what had happened to the world. She slowly pushed herself to a sitting position and took inventory of her body. No missing body parts. Miraculously, nothing seemed to be broken. Everything hurt and ached and felt sore—some deep gashes that were sticky and matted with blood—but otherwise…she was in tip-top shape.

_And you have him to thank for that. You’d be dead if it weren’t for him._

Where was he anyway?

She looked around slowly and was startled to see that he was laying ten feet away from her on the grassy slope. He lay on his stomach, his head turned away from her, completely still. She froze and stared at him, unable to properly comprehend. “Hello?” she called. Her voice was raspy and came out as barely a whisper. She coughed and swallowed her spit, trying to lubricate her dry throat, and tried again. “Winter…um, Winter Soldier? Hello? Are you…”

_Dead?_

She couldn’t tell if she’d be relieved if he were dead or terrified for her own safety. As much as she hated him, she also had a feeling she needed him now, to survive (until he delivered her to those who would inevitably kill her).

She slowly scooted closer to him and delicately reached a foot out, holding her breath, and nudged the back of his head with her toe. He didn’t move. She slowly crawled around to her other side and knelt near him, pressing her cheek against the grass and staring into his face. She sucked in a deep breath as she realized _she was looking at his actual face_.

His mask and goggles seemed to have been ripped off somewhere in the fall and she was looking at his face.

His real face.

Finally, the silent man behind the mask had features to him.

His eyes were closed and his face was pale, devoid of any color that would suggest he was alive. He had dark brown, thick eyebrows and a straight, strong nose with slightly thin pink lips that were ever-so-slightly open. He had stubble on his face, that I-haven’t-shaved-in-a-week look Sophie normally found attractive when it wasn’t on a psychotic kidnapper with a metal arm. Black soot or ash from the crash was smeared across his face, making him look like he had war paint on his face. Sophie touched a finger to her own face and rubbed. Her fingertips came away black. So she had it on her face too.

She slowly reached out and gingerly lifted an eyelid.

A blueish-green eye stared blankly at her.

She let out a startled cry and involuntarily jerked back a bit. This was all too much—seeing his face and his _eye—_ his possibly very _dead_ eye—all in one day? She pressed shaking hands to her mouth and moved away from him a bit, but she couldn’t stop staring at him, heart racing. Seeing him like this without the horrible mask and goggles…he looked like a normal, slightly disheveled man in his twenties. Handsome features. Innocent expression, as if he had just gone for a light afternoon nap. How could _this man_ be the one who had been abusing her so well? Not that Sophie was an idiot. She knew young, handsome men could be dangerous and disgusting and cruel. Not every villain had a hooked nose and yellow teeth. But still—trying to reconcile this face with the brutal monster who’d been throwing her around like she was a sack of flour…

She didn’t get it.

Once she was positive he wasn’t going to suddenly come alive and begin choking the life out of her, she moved closer to him and listened for a heartbeat. She tried to feel for a pulse on his human wrist but either there wasn’t one or she was just being clumsy and nervous and looking in the wrong place. She dropped his cold wrist and very slowly, very gently brushed his hair away from his neck and leaned in, feeling very much like a vampire. She pressed two fingers to his neck where his carotid artery was supposed to be and closed her eyes to concentrate.

 _There it is_. A pulse. She pulled away quickly and sat on her haunches, trying to figure out if she felt disappointed or relieved. He would live to abuse and terrorize another day. But at least she wasn’t alone in…wherever the hell she was.

She looked up and took the landscape around her in for the first time. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart seemed to stop. She’d been so busy figuring out if they were both dead or alive that she hadn’t really _taken in_ where they were until now.

They were on a steep, green mountainside. On either side of them rose huge craggy snow-capped mountains, a green, lush valley far below them, a small river or stream or something running through it. They were high up and surrounded by grass and boulders and trees. It was very cold and she couldn’t help but shiver in the morning air. All she could see as far as her vision went were mountains and more mountains, green mountainsides, green valleys, trees, streams…

This could be a great number of places. South America, Europe, Asia… She had no idea how fast the plane had been going. There wasn’t nearly enough ice or snow for this to be the Himalayas so she privately tried to rule that one out. Unfortunately, she had no other knowledge about mountains so she really couldn’t guess where they were. Wherever it was, it was chilly and beautiful and _very_ remote. She didn’t see a person or a man-made road or a village in sight at all, no matter how far into the distance she squinted.

This felt very disconcerting.

Despite not being very _good_ at surviving in it, Sophie did like the outdoors. She had her whole life. There was less technology in the wilderness. Less opportunities for her to mess up—hurt someone else or hurt herself. But she’d never been so fully immersed in the wilderness before. Her day walks at arboretums and parks with park rangers always at hand and other people on the pathway definitely did _not_ compare to being launched into some strange mountain chain alone…except for her kidnapper.

A man Sophie wasn’t sure if she wanted to remain alive or not. She looked back down at him. The pale skin of his neck was exposed beautifully to her. Sharp rocks and pieces of metal wreckage from the plane littered the ground all around them. As if in a dream, she reached over and slowly picked up a piece of scrap metal, deadly sharp and jagged around the corners. Some bit of the plane that had been ripped off. She balanced it in her hand, trying to get a feel for it, and then clutched it like a dagger, ignoring how its sharp edges cut into her palm and fingers. She held it over his neck and closed her eyes. Imagined bringing it down as hard as she could. She wasn’t as strong as him but the skin of his neck was just as soft as any humans. She would slice through it like it was butter. Stab him straight through the neck. He wouldn’t even wake. Dark red blood would trickle out, leak out like a dying fountain, and he would perhaps gurgle a little or make a small sound—stir slightly—and then he’d bleed out in a matter of minutes.

She’d be rid of him. She could go off on her own and find some villagers to help her figure out where she was and how she could get home. They weren’t supposed to crash here—whoever he was working for, if he _was_ working for someone, would never know what had happened to them. Of course…when she was found and returned home safely, they’d realize she’d done something to him and come after her again.

So she’d be able to go home only to see her parents really quickly and assure them she was safe before anonymously taking off for some other country to start a new life. The thought of never being able to return to the cozy, isolated comfort of her tiny apartment terrified and depressed her—but at the same time, a bit of her spirit lifted at the thought. She would essentially be _forced_ to seek out a new life and hadn’t she promised herself that she would do everything that terrified her if she survived this? That included starting a new life in a strange place. She could go to the French countryside. She could live in a crowded, busy Asian hub. She could disappear off to Turkey. With her looks, she wouldn’t stand out much. Many Arabs were pale-skinned and dark-haired, weren't they?

She could do all of this if she murdered him right now, before he had a chance to wake up and overpower her.

Her eyes were still closed.

_Come on, Sophie, you’ll never get another chance like this._

_He’s a brute. You’ve tried to befriend him—humanize him—he won’t fall for it. Saving his life won’t make him grateful toward you. You can’t make him your friend._

_If he wakes up, he’ll take control of the situation again._

_You’ll never see your parents again._

Her hand trembled, sweaty, clutching the sharp piece so hard that it cut into her skin and thin droplets of blood splattered onto his neck.

Two things merged into her mind at the same time, mixing and crossing in the tumultuous sea of her mind: _I need him to survive_ and _I can never be who he is_.

Her hands felt stiff, frozen to the shape of the piece. Her eyes flew open. She jerkily snapped her hand open and then metal piece fell to the ground next to him, its edges covered in a thin layer of her already-drying blood. She felt lightheaded and dizzy and didn’t know if it was the monumental decision she’d just made— _So this is who I am; am I brave or a coward?_ —or the high altitude they were at.

She crawled away from him to prevent any more temptation to commit an attempt on his life and then looked around at the mountains and valley around them. The valley had more dense forest and a stream winding its way through it. Would it be safer to move into the valley? Either way, she definitely couldn’t do it until he woke up. He was far too heavy for her to carry and if she tried to drag him down the sloping mountainside, she’d probably end up tumbling them both over a cliff edge and killing them both.

She shivered at the cold and decided that she would at least build a fire. She’d never done it before but how hard could it be? She slowly stood up, shaking the achiness and stiffness out of her body, blowing on the thin slices in her palm and fingers, and set off. She didn’t stray far from their landing site but did explore the area a bit. The mountainside was steep but not so steep that she couldn’t walk and she had to admit, as she slowly picked her way down the slope, the view was breathtaking. She’d never seen such a postcard-perfect picture in real life before. Never had the urge to throw her arms out and yell, scream at the top of her lungs, really let it _out_ in such a silent, secluded, pristine place. If she weren’t freezing and in this awful situation, she might have enjoyed being here. But of course, she’d have needed her tea and copious books and a sofa and a blanket. She was a creature of comfort, in the end.

She spent a good hour gathering various twigs and branches and bits of wood from the ground, even ripping some small branches off of trees, and carrying them back to him. When she was satisfied that she had a large enough pile, she began slowly checking his pockets to see if he had a lighter. It felt extremely odd, gently going through his pockets, fingers brushing against his various weapons, almost patting him down. It felt…invasive and far too personal and she couldn’t help but blush to herself, even if no one else could see her and she was doing this for a completely legitimate reason.

 _Calm down_ , she told herself sternly. _You’re not molesting him. You’re looking for a lighter. Heat is essential. You’ll both freeze to death at some point if you don’t start a fire._ The only other way to keep warm—Sophie had read this in a book about men lost in some national park for days—was to basically have as much skin-to-skin contact with the other person, because the body heat radiated between the two people. That would require the Winter Soldier to strip off his shirt and Sophie to strip down to her barest clothing and essentially _cuddle_ with him.

 _When hell freezes over, pigs fly, Zeus reveals he’s actually my dad, I get my letter to Hogwarts, and all other manner of impossibilities_ , she thought to herself with clenched teeth.

After touching an alarming number of weapons—half of which she didn’t understand what they even _were_ —she finally found a lighter in one of his pockets. Some of the pieces of wood were still green so they didn’t burn very well, and it took her at least twenty tries (by the end of which she was cursing him, herself, the mountains, and the entire world), but she _finally_ got a tiny little flame started which grew to a medium sized fire. It was small, it wouldn’t warm a whole crowd, but it was enough for the two of them.

Sophie really was not well-versed in surviving in the wild and she wondered for a moment if starting a fire had been a bad move. It could signal to others where they were—a good or bad thing, depending on who came to get them. And could it attract mountain lions or bears or whatever vicious beast lurked in the forests below them? She swallowed at the thought and prayed that nothing bad came from this decision. She was feeling pretty proud of herself for taking charge and not sitting back and wailing, so she would feel pretty stupid if they both got eaten because of her decision.

The fire burned out in an hour because she hadn’t gotten enough wood so she had to start the whole process all over again. This time it took her two full hours to hunt down enough wood and start a decent sized fire. He didn’t stir this entire time. She knew he was alive—she checked his pulse periodically and it was there—but she wondered if he was brain dead or something. What if he’d turned into a vegetable on her? What would she do? Leave him as dinner for the wild animals, of course. The thought made her smile slightly. She couldn’t help but pinch him on the neck a little, feeling a little bit of vicious satisfaction at the thought of every bruise she was leaving. This wasn’t even a third of what he deserved.

She used a twig to aimlessly write things in the dirt at her feet: _S O P H I E._ She scratched it out. _H E L P M E._ Scratched it out. _S O S._ Scratched it out. Wondered what day it was. She thought they landed at Cuba on Tuesday morning…and spent all day there…and then moved out on Tuesday night…it couldn’t _possibly_ be Wednesday right now… It was either Thursday or Friday, depending on how long they’d been passed out for. 

Almost a full week since she’d been taken and yet it felt like two lifetimes. She couldn’t even think back to the early days—running from him while he played a dangerous, lazy game of hide-and-seek with her, hiding in an abandoned factory—without feeling shocked that it had only been a few days ago.

She saw the Winter Soldier stir out of the corner of her eyes and turned, tensing immediately, hand lowering to her foot in case she needed her blade for any reason. She wasn’t an idiot—she’d taken advantage of him being knocked out and had stolen one of his smallest blades and slipped it down her Converse. Then she’d hidden another small blade buried beneath a large rock a few feet away. She’d considered stealing one of his guns but figured that would be much more noticeable to him. Besides, she had absolutely no idea how to shoot a gun.

She watched him stir, his face turned away from her, wavy dark hair thrown every which way. He let out a groan and then slowly rolled over so he was facing the sky. He blinked a few times at the sky and rubbed at his face very slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose. Then he slowly turned his head and looked directly at Sophie. He had dark shadows under his eyes and his gaze seemed blank, as if he hadn’t yet realized that Sophie could see his face.

“Hi,” she said.

His mouth opened slightly and his eyes narrowed in confusion. Then he sat up, more fluidly than Sophie had done, and cracked his neck, looking all around them and pushing his long dark hair away from his face. He didn’t have any emotion on his face but Sophie was startled to see that he didn’t exactly look robotic—more like a confused little boy who’d just woken up from sleeping and had no idea what was going on.

“Wh—” He suddenly coughed, the words clearly stuck in his throat. Going through the same thing she’d gone through when she’d first woken up.

“We’re in some mountains,” she said casually, trying to sound very blasé. “You—you jumped out of the plane with us.”

“The plane…” he repeated slowly. A question. She pointed up, at the mountain rising above them in the distance. One half of the plane stuck out from a rocky ledge very far from them.

“My…” He seemed to be muttering to himself. He began patting himself down, silently mouthing things to himself, looking for things Sophie was unaware of. He pulled out a gun and started loading it but then it clattered from his hand and he bent over, pressing his hands to his forehead and letting out a groan.

She frowned and leaned forward slightly, still a good few feet from him, on the opposite side of the fire from him. “What?”

He shook his head once, twice, and then she saw him viciously biting his lower lip. He let out a snarling noise to himself and then closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, total blankness returning to his face. Sophie watched him, fascinated. _Is he, like, meditating the pain out of himself?_ She couldn’t stop looking at his face. After so long with just the mask and goggles, she felt like she was with someone else completely. Not the man who’d kidnapped her and attacked her. Would he still act the same toward her? It would feel much stranger being attacked by a man when they could look each other directly in the eyes as he hurt her.

He finally opened his eyes and fixed his gaze directly at Sophie. She jerked back, alarmed, and she felt like she was frozen to the spot as they locked eyes—blue-green with sage-green—and they stared at each other for what felt like an impossibly long amount of time. He didn’t have any particular expression; he just stared at her as if trying to place who exactly she was. He seemed so much more human and vulnerable without his mask but Sophie kept trying to remind herself not to underestimate him.

Finally he reached up and touched the exposed skin of his neck and spoke, his voice low and hoarse: “You didn’t kill me.”

“I didn’t kill you,” she agreed.

“You could have.”

“I could have,” she agreed.

“Why?”

She thought for a long time. Half-formed answers rose to the tip of her tongue. _I’m not like you. I can’t just hurt and kill people. I need you to survive, I think._

“I don’t know,” she finally said.

And they kept looking at each other, wary, guarded, trying to figure out the rules and lines of their new situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: There we go! The mask is finally off. Hope you liked how it happened! Drop a review in the review box and let me know!


	10. Chapter 10

The girl hadn’t killed him. This was the most shocking thing. She could have easily killed him. Even a weak little thing like her could have killed an unconscious man. He wondered for a moment if she’d been too afraid to do it—she seemed to be afraid of most things—but then his sharp eyes caught the red slashes on her right palm and fingers. Fresh. Newly made. He saw the piece of metal laying next to him, its edges red with dried blood, and he put two and two together easily. So she _had_ considered it. It would have worked, if she’d done it. Even if he wasn’t impervious to getting stabbed in the throat.

He wondered why she hadn’t.

He should have been launching into action. Using his sat-phone to radio back into the Hydra base in Brazil where he was supposed to be taking the girl. Accounting for his weapons. Using his geo-map scanner to figure out the best route out of these mountains. And yet all he could do was sit like a stupid lump and watch the girl listlessly drag a stick through the dirt.

 _She had seen his face_. He didn’t know what to do now. He had been given explicit instructions for her to never see his face. Less because it would make it easier for her to identify him to authorities and more because Hydra understood the psychological implications of seeing someone’s face. They wanted to avoid even the slightest chance of a human bond forming between the Winter Soldier and one of his targets. The more he seemed like a mechanical monster to his targets, the more they would be terrified of him—and the more he would maintain a proper distance from them.

He looked the girl over carefully to see if she’d been damaged in any way. They’d be angry if she was too damaged. Then again, they were going to be angry with him no matter what happened now—they’d gone off course and would be late returning to base. He was allowed free reign to proceed with his missions as he so chose and planned…but within a set time frame. Hydra never allowed him unlimited time out in the world. He had no idea why and had never considered the matter because it wasn’t his matter to consider. He just knew that was how things were.

Amazingly, she didn’t look much worse for the wear. He’d have thought that a small, slender thing like her would have been shattered by their leap from the plane—even though he’d sheltered her pretty well—but no, she’d emerged with only a few cuts and gashes, it seemed. And she’d woken up _before him_. How the hell had that happened? She’d woken up before him and had even found time to build a small fire to stave off the cold. He couldn’t help but coldly salute her smart thinking. Of course, a fire could signal their location to undesirable parties…

He clenched his cybernetic fist. He could deal with any undesirables.

Just the way he’d dealt with the pilot on the plane. In retrospect…he realized he’d acted too quickly. He’d been reckless. It was his fault, really, that they were in this mess. But who could blame him? He’d been watching the scanner and had noticed that they were slowly veering off of the planned route. He’d gotten up and gone to have a word with the pilot. Perhaps the idiot was confused or had fallen asleep on the handles. He had no idea. But what he found was entirely different. The pilot had pointed a pistol at him and said, “Hydra deserves to burn,” and then he’d wrenched the handles so that the plane jerked violently.

He realized his mistake now. He didn’t know how to fly a plane so he should have allowed the man to take them wherever he wanted—or threatened him into taking them to Brazil—and then killed him when they landed. But he’d lost his temper and a furious struggle had ensued, which accounted for the violent rocking of the plane. And then he’d killed the pilot and accidentally destroyed part of the plane’s control panel.

The plane had gone down after that.

He tried not to think about the pilot’s betrayal because it made his blood simmer with rage—and the only other person around was the girl. He had to get a hold of his temper and fury. He couldn’t take his rage out on her because she wouldn’t survive it.

He took a deep breath of cold mountain air to clear his head. Time to get back to work. First things first—account for his weapons. Then food. Then figure out a way out of these damned mountains and back onto their planned route.

    _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sophie tried not to watch him. She really did. But she couldn’t stop staring at his face—seriously, _such_ a welcome relief after his terrifying face mask and goggles—and she was also curious to see what his next moves were. He sat looking limp for a little while, which unnerved her. She’d never seen him look so… _loose_. His legs, his arms, hands…they were all limp, unclenched, not rigid. He also looked a bit dazed, staring off into the distance. She furrowed her brow, concerned that he perhaps _had_ sustained some brain damage during the fall, but then he shook his head and tightened back up. He sat up straighter, squaring his broad shoulders, and she could see that the veins in his neck were taut. She sighed, disappointed. He’d gone back to his strict soldier self.

He began pulling weapons out of his pockets and laying them out on the grass, disassembling the guns. She watched, utterly fascinated. He pulled so many weapons out that she was honestly a little concerned. Where the hell had he held all these weapons? She didn’t even want to imagine.

He began putting the guns back together and strapping himself back up again. She watched with baited breath, hoping he wouldn’t notice the two missing daggers. They’d been so small and Sophie-sized, they were probably useless to him anyway. He finished inventory of his weapons and strapping them back onto his body and into his pockets, and turned to the fire without a word. She exhaled in relief and went back to scratching random words into the dirt with her stick. He hadn’t noticed, thank God.

“Where are my two daggers?”

_DAMMIT._

She winced to herself and then looked up at him, trying to make herself look innocent. It wasn’t hard; she was generally an innocent person. “I don’t know,” she said, trying not to quail under his hard gaze.

“Are you sure?” he asked in a low voice, standing up and taking a step toward her.

“Positive,” she said firmly, hoping he couldn’t hear her hammering heart. _Play it cool, Sophie_.

He crouched down right next to her and looked her right in the eye. Her heart burst into a sprint of terror but she forced herself to look into his cold blue-green eyes and repeat, “Positive.”

“And if I search your body?” he asked, his voice soft and semi-threatening. “ _All_ of you?”

Sophie bristled at the thinly-veiled invasive threat. _If you search my body and find the dagger in my shoe, I’ll still have one buried under a rock_. The thought gave her the confidence to hold her head up, keep looking him directly in the eyes, and coldly say, “Go ahead. I don’t have them. They probably fell out when we jumped.”

His eyes narrowed but he moved away from her, clearly satisfied with her answer. He probably didn’t think she had it in her to lie to him. _Ha. Proved you wrong, you douchecanoe._

“What food do we have?” he asked.

“Uh—” Sophie looked around at the debris around them, taken off guard. “I don’t know?”

He snorted derisively. “You didn’t check?”

Her cheeks burned. “No.”

“Smart.” He stood up and stomped over to where the majority of the wreckage was littered around and began sifting through the pile, sending huge pieces of metal flying wantonly, flinging them every which way. One nearly hit Sophie in the head and she said, “Watch it!” She watched him rage-dig through the pile and wondered why he was so pissed off. Besides the obvious reasons, of course—but he seemed like he was _especially_ angry about something.

She didn’t want to go near him but she felt stupid and useless after his comment—her starting a fire didn’t seem so special anymore—so she got up and began looking through the wreckage as well. There wasn’t that much to look through. The plane had been small and half of it was still wedged into the mountain above. Other pieces had fallen down further parts of the mountainside. Their little clearing only had a few large pieces with lots of small, crushed pieces laying around. She hauled a large piece that looked like part of the wing aside and found a small cloth bag. She untied it and looked inside to find a dozen packets of salted peanuts.

She was allergic to peanuts. Not deathly allergic, but they made her mouth itch and burn uncomfortably.

“Fabulous,” she mumbled to herself. Her luck just got better and better.

After salvaging for a few more minutes she determined that there was nothing else. She walked back over to the small fire and dropped the back of peanuts on the ground. To her incredible surprise, he had found an entire bag of pretzels and snacks. He had shown her up and she had a sneaking suspicion he had done it on purpose.

_Don’t be an idiot, Sophie. He has no reason to try and show you up. We both know he’s superior in every way—except being a decent human being._

She sat down by the fire and picked up her twig, scratching a childish monster face into the dirt with narrowed eyes and fangs. Then she looked up at him. “Okay listen,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Now that we’re stuck here—and I _know_ this wasn’t a part of your plan—can you _please_ tell me why you’ve kidnapped me? It’s been days. I have nowhere to go. I have no money. We’re stuck. It really doesn’t matter if I know now and who knows, it might make me more cooperative if I knew…” This was a bald lie and she had a feeling he knew it but neither of them said it.

He was silent, slowly turning a gun over and over in his hands, human fingers mingling with bright silver ones. She hoped he wouldn’t shoot her. He wasn’t going to kill her at this point but shooting her in the foot or calf wouldn’t kill her.

“Well?” she demanded.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t _know_?” she asked somewhat huffily, feeling bolder because she could finally see his damn face. “Either you tell me or you don’t! How do you not _know_ if you’re going to tell me—”

“I don’t know why.”

The words didn’t make sense to Sophie. She stared at him, tilting her head slightly, confused. What did he mean, he didn’t know _why_? He didn’t know why he’d taken her? That was obviously a stupid lie. No one premeditatedly kidnapped someone to this degree for no reason! He obviously had a reason.

“Are you working for someone?”

“Yes.” _I knew it._

“Who?”

His lips tightened and his knuckles whitened dangerously. Sophie hastily retreated from that question. “So you don’t know why…they asked you to kidnap me?”

“No,” he snarled suddenly, looking up at her, his eyes blazing with fury. She jerked back, startled, and then scrambled back a bit as he leaned in closer, looking dangerous and utterly mad. “I don’t know why they picked _me_ to get a stupid, weak, little girl like _you_ and I don’t know why they want _you_ and I don’t know! But I don’t _want_ to know. It’s not important to the mission. So shut the hell up before I throw you off a goddamn cliff!”

His chest was heaving up and down with rage and he looked deranged. Sophie felt like she’d swallowed her tongue in fear. He’d never lost control like this before. She was about to get up and quickly walk away from him—when she realized, looking at his face, that that was exactly what he wanted. He was thrown off by this whole situation—landing here, losing his mask, her asking questions—and he was trying to control it by freaking her out.

Well, she wasn’t going to let it work.

Okay, actually, it was working. She was totally freaked out. He looked dangerous and capable of doing very bad things to her. But she also knew, deep down, that the mission involved delivering her _alive_ to whoever had ordered her kidnapping. “No, you won’t,” she said loudly, trying to control the trembling in her voice. “You won’t throw me off the cliff and you know it because then I’d be dead and where would the _mission_ ”—she sneered the word—“be then, huh?”

His nostrils flared and he stared at her, fury coiled tightly behind his cold eyes. “True. But I can still hurt you. You want some cuts and bruises? I can _make you_ shut up.”

“Then do it,” Sophie spat, almost sobbing with fear and anger and frustration now. “I’m so sick of this! Do it! You’ve never had any problem doing it before!”

“I will!” he snarled, moving close to her as quick as a snake and pressing a blade to her face, right into the corner of her eye. “Don’t test me!”

“I—I _am_ testing you,” she gasped, trying not throw up with fear. She knew she was wildly pushing her limits but she was so fed up with this constant cycle of control and abuse he had put her through. Now she was going to talk back and ask questions _even if it meant him hurting her_. “Do it! Do it, you freak!” she shrieked, feeling almost half-mad.

She felt the blade press into her cheek and felt a sting—and then suddenly he shoved her away from him with a noise of disgust. She hit the ground and her head hit a rocky portion. Stars exploded in front of her eyes and a strange, slurred sound came out of her mouth: “Hnnnghh.”

She lay there for a moment, feeling tired and unwilling to get up—but the rock behind her head really was very sharp and pointy and painful. So she slowly sat up and felt the back of her head. It hurt but there wasn’t any blood. She was good. The Winter Soldier had retreated back to his seat and was studying a black device held in his hands but as Sophie sat there and a sudden cool breeze swirled around them, she felt a hum of satisfaction. She’d pushed him and he’d hurt her—but he hadn’t killed her and she’d stood firm. She’d been brave for once in her life and she’d _stood firm_.

And she was still alive to tell the tale.

To some people, her defiance might have been nothing. Other women might have done so much more than Sophie was doing. But to Sophie, it was an incredible step. What had happened to her in college…her whole life leading up to these moments…she had backed away from confrontation and conflict at every turn. She couldn’t handle fights, she couldn’t stand arguments, and anything that seemed slightly dangerous or risky at all was out of bounds. She didn’t socialize because she was afraid of what it might lead to—mistakes on her part or annihilation on others’ parts. She didn’t have an online presence because she stayed the hell away from technology, given what she could do with it.

And now she was standing up to her kidnapper. A violent man much larger than her size and far more powerful than her. Far more powerful than _most_ human men, actually. She didn’t know much about the situation but if she had to give an educated guess, she would say that he was an enhanced super soldier the same way that Captain America was. It was the most reasonable explanation she had. But obviously this guy didn’t work for the good guys like Captain America did.

She felt the winds of change stirring slightly. She didn’t know if she was being stupidly poetic—but it felt like they had turned a corner of some sorts. He was still violent and dangerous. She was still his captive. But now…some of the power had evened out between them. She’d pushed him and shown him that she wasn’t going to meekly back down anymore. And he didn’t have the complete upper hand of the situation, given that he was just as off course as she was.

She pressed her fingers to the stinging cut he’d nicked on the side of her face and her fingers came away stained with blood. She wished she had a mirror to see how bad it was but it felt like it was only a small nick, nothing bad. She pressed the hem of her hoodie to her forehead, bending down so her head was near her knees. She hoped her cut wouldn’t get infected because her clothes were dirty…

In fact, most of her needed to be cleaned. She felt disgusting, especially after the plane crash. It was a silly thing to be worrying about—body odor, sweat, dirt—but a part of it _was_ logical. The dirtier she was, the more chance of her cuts and gashes of getting infected. Her hair felt limp and greasy, her scalp ached, and she’d been wearing the same underwear for almost a week, which was horrifying enough on its own to almost cancel out every other hygienic horror she was enduring.

“We need to find water,” she said suddenly. He didn’t respond but she could tell he was listening—or she hoped he was, anyway. “Does your phone or geo-scanner or whatever work?” Even as she asked, she knew they didn’t, because if they had he would have surely used them by now. And sure enough, his answer came back a short and clipped “No.”

“We need water to drink,” she continued, “and clean ourselves off in. Your mission is going to be pointless if I—or you—die from an infected cut.”

He stilled ever so slightly at this last sentence and she knew she’d hooked him. He looked up at the violet skies, evening falling around them. “We head down tomorrow,” he decided. Sophie was fine with that. It was getting far too dark to start heading down now and she didn’t much fancy the idea of heading down the dark, ominous-looking valley right now. What had looked so beautiful and charming earlier now looked isolated and dangerous in the purple skies. Still, she had to admit that the sunset was beautiful. The sun slowly dipped below the mountaintops, bathing the valley in a mixture of orange-golden light and dark green, feathering onto the violet-blue streaked skies above. She leaned back onto her elbows and sighed. _What a view_.

She didn’t notice the almost-curious look he gave her at her sigh.

The fire had been consistently burning lower and lower as evening fell and eventually it petered out, a thin stream of smoke curling up above it like an unfurling flag. Sophie stood up to gather more wood and he roughly asked, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To gather more wood for the fire,” she said, feeling it was fairly obvious.

“No more fire.”

She stared at him. “But—but it’s freezing out here! And we’re not wearing winter clothes!” It definitely didn’t feel like summer up here but she figured that was the high altitude doing the work. Hopefully it would be warmer down in the valley tomorrow.

“No fire,” he repeated, his voice stiff. “Attracts attention.”

 _Maybe that’s exactly what we need. Someone to notice us—save me_. “So?” she asked stubbornly.

“Do you want to get eaten by mountain lions?”

She paused suddenly, her earlier thoughts rushing back to her. She swallowed once and asked, “So there…there _are_ mountain lions out here?”

“Yes.” He could have been lying but she didn’t see why he would be.

“Where exactly are we?” she asked. She didn’t think mountain lions existed in the mountain ranges of Europe—but perhaps she was wrong.

“Peru.” He seemed extraordinarily chatty tonight. Perhaps he had seen something change in the wind between them as well—sensed that she wouldn’t be deterred by silence and violence anymore. Not most of the time, anyway.

Sophie blinked at him and then slowly sank to the ground, crossing her legs. Peru. They were in freaking _Peru_. What mountain chain was in Peru? The Andes mountains, wasn’t it? She wasn’t positive but she definitely wasn’t asking the Winter Soldier for a geography lesson right now.

She gingerly lay down on the cold grass as darkness fell around them and curled up into herself, wrapping her arms around herself and scrunching up as tight as she could into a fetal position. But still the cold bit her through her thick hoodie and shirt and pants. Her ratty Converse were no match for this temperature. She lay there shivering and hating her life for about twenty-five minutes and she had finally succeeded in dozing into a frozen half-sleep when suddenly she was woken by something hitting her shoulder _hard_.

“Whazgoinon?” she slurred, rubbing her icy palms on her eyes, rolling over and blinking through the darkness at the Winter Soldier.

“Come here,” he ordered.

She squinted at him, confused. “What?”

“Come here,” he repeated, not clarifying. It didn’t exactly help the situation. Sophie had no idea what he wanted but she didn’t want him to get angry and beat her up—she was honestly too tired for it tonight—so she slowly sat up and crawled over to him, clearly confused. “What?”

“Take off your jacket,” he said and then he tapped the ground in front of him. “Lay down here.”

Sophie’s brain must have been working _remarkably_ slow, she thought in retrospect, for it to take so long for her to understand what he wanted—and it was made all the more embarrassing by the fact that she had even actually thought about this situation earlier in the day. As it was, it took her brain a few minutes of staring at him to understand what he was commanding her to do. When it finally registered, she recoiled away from him and said, “No! _No_!”

“You will,” he said in a dangerous tone.

“I will _not_!” she said, her voice shaking with both horror at his idea and fear over what he might do to her for refusing. She was taking a new stance in standing up to him—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t terrified of the punishments he could dole out for her rebellions and insolence.

He was silent and still for a very long moment that seemed to stretch out for all of eternity—Sophie could see his stone-still silhouette in the darkness—and then he finally said, “Do you enjoy having all your fingers and toes?”

“I am _not_ going to get frostbite,” she snapped, moving even further away from him. “It’s not that cold!” This was a lie. She was freezing. She didn’t understand why it was so cold—for god’s sake, they were in _Peru_ —but she was definitely going to do some research on the climate in the Andes mountains if she ever made it out of this alive.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice very flat.

 _He’s taunting me. He’s trying to scare me._ She looked down at her hands. Her beloved hands. Fingers that she _really_ enjoyed having. She didn’t want to lose any of her fingers or toes or ears or nose. She didn’t want to lose any body part. She had a very low tolerance for pain and discomfort and the thought of losing any body part to the cold filled her with immense horror. “I’ll take my chances,” she said, though her voice wavered uncertainly.

“You are not allowed to get permanently damaged,” he said mechanically.

“I won’t—”

“You are not allowed to get permanently damaged.” A chill went down Sophie’s spine as he blankly repeated the words like a robot. He didn’t sound like someone who cared—he sounded like someone who was reciting a line from a manifesto he’d been forced to memorize a hundred thousand times and spit out as if his life depended on it. As if it was all he knew. And he was talking about her like she was an _object_. “Permanently damaged”? Who said things like that? It was such a dehumanizing way to say “permanently hurt.” She was not a box of goods to be “permanently damaged.”

“Come here,” he repeated. Everything he said was so flat and devoid of any real emotion, as if nothing really _mattered_ to him. Who on Earth _was_ he, to do someone’s work so brutally…but act like the work didn’t matter to him? If it didn’t matter, why the hell was he so insistent on completing the “mission” properly? None of this made sense to Sophie. The longer she spent time with him, the less she understood him.

“What are you going to do?” she whispered.

“My temperature runs hotter than normal humans.”

 _Normal humans_. Implying that he wasn’t one. Sophie knew this by now, of course—how could she not? He’d done things no average human could do. Still…to hear him say it so openly, so factually…it was unnerving.

Hell had not frozen over. Sophie didn’t see any pigs flying. Zeus hadn’t come down to Earth to reveal he was Sophie’s dad. No owl had dropped a letter from Hogwarts into Sophie’s lap. Nothing impossible had happened. But _Sophie was freezing_ —and it looked like she was going to have to eat her words. She might have endured shivering through the night, curled up, arms wrapped around herself, but now he had brought up the possibility of frostbite. She didn’t really know if that could be an issue—she didn’t have a thermometer with her to formally check the temperature—but now she couldn’t stop feeling paranoid about it.

“If you don’t come here, I’m going to knock you out and drag you here myself,” came his voice through the darkness. “I’m giving you three minutes.”

Sophie’s stomach seemed to bottom out. _Looks like he’s made my decision for me._ She closed her eyes and prayed to the heavens to forgive her for this betrayal she was about to commit. Then she slowly, ever so slowly, scooted closer to his form in the dark. To his credit, he didn’t move and his expression remained impassive and apathetic. His eyes seemed to stare past Sophie, over her head, into the darkness and this made Sophie feel better. For once she was glad for him ignoring her existence. If he acted like she didn’t even exist, she would be able to endure this much more easily.

Her stomach was flipping nauseously at what she was about to do but she didn’t know what she could do to stop it. He would force her if she didn’t comply—and a weak part of her didn’t even really _want_ to rebel, if she had to be honest with herself. She was freezing and she wanted to warm up and she had a strong feeling, deep down, that he wasn’t going to do anything inappropriate to her. It just wasn’t his MO. The worst part about this situation would really be her having to eat her own words and having to swallow her dignity and pride.

She would decide tomorrow if it had been worth it.

She slowly unzipped her heavy hoodie and pulled her arms through the sleeves, leaving the hoodie hanging around her shoulders like a cape. She immediately felt the cold pierce the tight-but-thin long-sleeved shirt she wore underneath and she shuddered against the cold. She closed her eyes and tried to block out the sound of him unzipping and unbuckling his shirt or vest or whatever the hell it was that he wore on his torso. She kept sitting there, eyes closed, even when he had gone silent and he roughly snapped, “Sometime in this century.”

Sophie briefly considered throwing herself off the mountainside.

She tried to say, “Okay,” but she choked on the word and what came out was an incoherent gargle. She swallowed and then slowly lay down on the ground next to him. He was facing her and she was facing him. She edged _just_ close enough to him to sort of feel his presence near her. “There,” she said firmly.

He made a noise of irritation and his right hand shot out, grabbed her, and yanked her close to him. Sophie pressed her hands to her face, trying to pretend she wasn’t in this situation. The front of his jacket or shirt had been unzipped or unclipped to reveal his chest underneath—his bare chest. Which Sophie was now pressed _directly against_. She was literally flush against his bare chest. She had a temporary crazy idea where she considered reaching down, pulling her blade out, and plunging it into his chest—

But no. Considering him, a chest shot wouldn’t kill him. It would only piss him off. He’d pull the dagger out and then stab it into _her_ chest. No…only a throat shot would work for him. The only way Sophie could _guarantee_ him dying.

Not that she was really planning on doing it. She hadn’t been able to do it before, she couldn’t do it now. The blade was just a defense measure for future times. Not even necessarily against him; what if a mountain lion attacked them? Sophie wanted to have _something_ dangerous in her hands to defend herself with.

That was how they lay. Her face and upper body pressed tightly against his bare chest, hands covering her face so that her face didn’t have to touch him. His chin could have rested on her head but he angled his head so that it didn’t. For half an hour, she was _incredibly_ twitchy and on edge, very tense. She couldn’t relax this close to him. It felt all wrong. She couldn’t believe she was in this highly personal position with him, even if the context was as impersonal as could be. But he was right—his temperature ran incredibly hot. In fact, his skin was hot to the point where Sophie would have actually thought he was running a high fever…but hey, he said it was normal for him, so who was she to dispute this? She didn’t want to relax but his plan worked, as Sophie had known it would (thanks to that survival guide she’d read). His body heat seemed to flow straight into her and warmed her up to the point where she actually dozed off. Her legs and feet and toes were still chilly but once her hands and upper body were warm, the bottom half didn’t feel so painful in comparison. He smelled like sweat and dirt and blood, which turned Sophie’s stomach a bit initially—but there was also a hint of…leather and fresh grass? Probably due to the fact that he wore leather and had been knocked out on the grass all day. Either way, the smell masked the blood and sweat on him and she actually fell asleep at some point, unable to resist feeling warm.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He kept his right hand pressed on the small of the girl’s back so the stupid thing didn’t roll away from him. She felt uncomfortable with this plan. He could see why. Human women were always wary about being near men they didn’t know, for good reasons. She needn’t have felt any alarm. This was purely a survival tactic. He had no other thoughts in his mind. That sort of…debauchery was not for the likes of someone like him. It was beneath him and he didn’t think about it. His mind was always on the mission. The goal. The task.

And currently his mind felt almost panicked with worry about the mission. Everything was going off track. He was off schedule, the pilot had been a traitor, it would undoubtedly take them a few more days to find their way out of these godforsaken mountains and get back on track… He clenched his jaw when he thought about how badly he’d screwed this mission up. They were going to punish him for this.

And she had seen his face. Another blow that he kept internally berating himself for, though that hadn’t been in his control.

And the questions she had asked earlier…she was getting bolder. More daring. Out of control. His handlers had been right—once they saw the face, they humanized you and things began to spin out of your control. She’d been fine—she’d at least stayed shut up—when he’d worn the mask and goggles. Now she couldn’t stop asking questions. And he didn’t even know what to do about it. He’d responded with a vicious display of violence, a display that would normally have made her cry and immediately stop talking—perhaps even vomit a little (if she had anything in her)—but this time she’d _held her ground_. He couldn’t tell whether he was impressed or enraged or a little bit of both. Yes, she’d shrieked and cried but she’d still held her ground. It was dangerous. She was…evolving.

The questions she’d asked were eating away at him too. Why _had_ they picked him to bring her in? She was so beneath his capabilities—and yet they’d insisted he keep a low profile and bring her in unharmed. She must be worth _something_ , more than just her rich father’s money. It was uncharacteristic of him to question why he’d been told to do anything but unbeknownst to him, the longer time he spent away from his handlers, the less glazed his mind became. His mind was always a chaotic place—always looking for weaknesses, strengths, ins and outs, escape plans, kill shots, scanning, planning, computing, strategizing—but now it was becoming chaotic in a different way. Different types of questions were arising. He was being tormented by different thoughts. Thoughts he normally would never have thought.

He didn’t realize it but he was evolving too.

Something else was bothering him deeply. This situation…holding her held tightly against his bare chest… He frowned as a sharp pain stabbed through his mind and he closed his eyes against the pain. It was a survival tactic. He’d seen other agents use it (very reluctantly) with each other before on missions. He’d never done it with anyone because he’d never had a mission where he needed to deliver a target unharmed, and he personally didn’t need it; his temperature was always high due to his increased metabolism and enhanced status. But even though he knew it was tactical…even though he’d seen Hydra agents use the same strategies during missions where they encountered intense cold…even though he’d never _personally_ used the tactic before…

Why did it feel vaguely familiar? And not for tactical reasons? His mind was agonizingly blank as he frantically tried to dig for a reason as to why, _why_ , he had the oddest feeling…that he’d done this before…

Done _what_ , exactly?

Huddled with someone to keep them warm?

Held a woman close to him?

Been shirtless near a woman?

He winced as another stab of pain shot through him. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t recall. The feeling was so faint…and far away…he couldn’t reach it. He wanted to desperately reach it, unravel it, figure out what his mind was trying to tell him—because as far as his memory stretched, he had never in his existence done anything like this with anyone. And yes, his memory was often blurry and shifting in and out of focus—he remembered some things but had to be repeatedly told others—but he was positive he would have remembered if he’d used this tactic before.

He decided he would blame it on the girl and her infuriating, demanding, idiotic presence. It was _her_ fault his plan and schedule had been consistently thrown off track. He should have just kept her knocked out this whole time and carried her around fireman style, like she was some luggage. Perhaps tomorrow he would. Everything seemed to stem from her, all of their problems, all of the issues with this mission. Even the fact that this scenario—him holding her close to keep her stupid fragile body warm—felt eerily familiar was probably _her_ fault in some way. He didn’t usually form an opinion on his missions—opinions were not his to form, nor did he normally give a shit about forming them—but he decided in this case he would make an exception…and he decided that he loathed this girl. She was a nuisance but more than that, she was a menace to his careful plans

He lay like that for a long time, his mind spinning like a sickening dervish, but finally he forced himself to shut down and go to sleep so he wasn’t loopy and sleep-deprived tomorrow. He could do things like that, almost _force_ himself to slow down his body systems and go to sleep. Sleep was necessary for survival and survival was what he did best.

As he faded into darkness—a part of his brain and ears alert, as always, for any approaching sounds, his left hand close to a weapon—he had the strangest thought that the girl, oddly enough, smelled faintly of blood...and vanilla.

           

           

                       

           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I realize that in CA:TWS, the Winter Soldier did know how to fly a plane. But for the purpose of my story, I made it so that he didn't know how to fly one. Happy holidays to those who celebrate! Let me know what you guys think in the review box below!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry for the delay, folks. Life has been majorly chaotic for the past few months. I won't bore you guys with the details, but things are tough right now. If you want some mood music for the second half of the chapter: "Midnight" by Coldplay.

Sophie woke alone and freezing, so she actually had to wonder for a few minutes if last night had actually happened. _Maybe it was all just a really weird dream_. But then she realized that her hoodie was unzipped and the grass next to her was flattened, indicating that someone else _had_ lain next to her. Her stomach flipped. _So we really did that_.

She frowned up at the pale blue sky and wondered yet again why it was so cold if they were truly in Peru. Was he lying or confused? Were seasons reversed in South America, the way they were in Australia? But no…there was still lush greenery all around them. Was it the high altitude? Or did the mountains get occasional cold fronts? It was cold out, though not as cold as last night.

She suddenly sat up as straight as a rod and ripped her Converse off, frantically checking to make sure she had all of her toes and could feel and move them all. Her feet looked a little red and felt cold but thankfully, she had all of her extremities. She considered the possibility that he’d lied about frostbite being a danger…but why would he do that? To get her close to him? She ran her mind over his handsome but blank face, his stiff movements, the way he looked at her like she was a strange, distasteful object. No. Whatever man—or monster—he was, he wasn’t the kind who cared about touching her.

So he truly must have believed that frostbite was a danger. Whether he was correct or not…that was a different question. But if he _wasn’t_ correct—if he’d been mistaken—this actually led Sophie to some interesting conclusions: One, that the Winter Soldier was fallible, and two, that he didn’t know everything in the world.

It almost shocked her, that he might have been confused or mistaken. Somehow it didn’t fit with the aggressive, prone-to-action figure of him in her mind. Then again…what situations had she _really_ seen him in? Not many. There could be a lot he didn’t know. She’d never seen him talk to normal people (Russian criminals didn’t count) and she couldn’t picture it even if she tried. He was too…silent and aggressive and weird.

_Childlike._

The word popped into Sophie’s head and she frowned to herself, a bit surprised. Why had _that_ word been the one to appear? There was nothing childlike about him. He was large and powerfully-built, he was dangerous, he used tantrum-like displays of violence when he was displeased, he seemed to see the entire universe as revolving around his mission, he didn’t seem to care about basic human social cues…

_Oh my god. He’s like a child._

Either that or he was a high-functioning autistic. But somehow she had a feeling that that wasn’t it.

The realization that there was something childlike about him—something in his blank, empty rages and mindless obedience—made Sophie feel odd. Add that to the fact that she knew he was working for someone and she felt even more odd. He didn’t act like someone who was willingly working for a boss or organization he properly believed in. He acted like someone who was completing the only work he knew how to do. It was like he didn’t see there was anything beyond a mission. It was definitely weird, because she knew that even evil henchmen had to have _something_ else they cared about: fame, money, power, even perhaps families or loved ones.

The Winter Soldier seemed to care about none of those things.

She got up and looked around, wondering where he’d gone. She slowly went around in a huge circle, scanning the entire mountainside and valley below them. He was nowhere to be seen. Had he abandoned her completely? She only considered it for half a second before laughing dryly to herself. He would never. The _mission_ was too important to him.

Deciding she didn’t really care where he was, she took this chance to dig out the knife she’d hidden under the rock and slip it into her other shoe. Then she began “packing”: gathering the bag of food she and he had found, looking for any extra weapons or food, adding some decent branches and pieces of wood into the bags of food. She took a stick and scratched _Sophie Duran was here_ into the dirt carefully. She was going to start leaving traces of her wherever she could. Chances were that no one would ever find her messages—but you never knew. Miracles could happen.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

She jumped in fright and dropped the stick. Then she whirled around, covering the message from view. “Nothing,” she said, trying to calm down her racing heart. _Where the hell did he come from?!_

He roughly shoved her aside and stared down at her message. Then he viciously kicked at it, destroying it, and gave her a look which made her want to wither up and die. Sophie had only once before had such a look—filled with scorn, disgust, and pure anger—leveled at her and it felt just as mortifying now as it had then. She began to wonder if it hadn’t been better when he’d worn a mask and goggles constantly.

“Let’s go,” he said and then he turned and began to made his way down the mountainside.

She walked slightly behind him. He took heavy, sure-footed steps, steadily clomping down the hilly, grassy mountainside, gently rolling and slopping in some places, sharper and steeper in other places. She walked more carefully, hesitantly taking light steps and trying her hardest not to fall. She was clumsy to begin with—walking down a mountainside with flat-footed Converse was not fun at all. Even if the mountain wasn’t the horribly dangerous and steep kind. She just didn’t like it.

They walked in silence for a while and Sophie asked, panting slightly, “Where did you go this morning?”

He was silent.

“So you’ve gone back to the silence thing?” she mumbled.

He was silent.

_Right, okay then._

They slowly and steadily made their way down the mountain. Sophie skidded a few times but she always managed to catch herself before she tripped. The sun was shining and the temperature became progressively warmer as they descended, though it still remained relatively cool. Sophie was still sweating by now, just by the strain of trying to make it down and angle her ankles properly so that she didn’t fall or get a sprain. She knew that she was basically hiking in the worst shoes possible for hiking and there was a big chance she might twist her ankle or fracture it. That would be the worst possible thing that she could do to herself right now. He’d be forced to either make her limp along him or he’d have to _carry_ her everywhere.

_No thank YOU._

God, how far had they come? The valley still seemed so far away. She craned her neck to look back up at their starting spot—and was shocked to see that they hadn’t even made it halfway down. Not even close. She bit back a groan and then turned back around, sighing and continuing to follow him wherever the heck he was going. He didn’t have his scanner or any map out so Sophie really had no idea where he thought he was headed. Unless he was winging this as well. Scary thought, really.

Her stomach suddenly growled embarrassingly and she bent over, pressing her arms to her abdomen, silently willing her body to shut up immediately. She hadn’t had anything real to eat in the past day except for the pretzels and snacks that she’d finished—and peanuts…which had made her mouth itch and burn very uncomfortably. She also hadn’t had anything to drink at all.

He stopped so abruptly that Sophie nearly slammed into him and turned around, saying, “Eat.”

“All we have left are peanuts,” she said.

He looked at her.

“I’m allergic to peanuts,” she explained.

“You ate them yesterday.”

“Yeah, and it felt horrible.”

“Did you die?”

She blinked at him.

“Did. You. Die?”

An angry flush crept up her neck and cheeks. “No.”

He took a step closer until they were staring at each other except Sophie had to look up because the top of her head barely came up to his nose. It pissed her off, that she had to look up at him, made her feel small and childish. “Then _eat_ ,” he repeated. It wasn’t a request; it was a command.

Sophie did something _incredibly_ stupid then. Her stomach twisted revoltingly at the thought of forcing down _more_ peanuts which made her mouth and stomach burn and she thought, _I won’t do it_. She pitched back her arm and suddenly hurled the bag as far away as she could, launching it over a rocky cliff nearby. He didn’t even have time to stop her.

For a moment, they both watched the bag roll down the mountainside and then vanish out of view. Sophie vaguely thought about how the scene would have looked so good in a Wes Anderson movie: two lone, silent figures standing and watching a bag tumble quietly down a mountainside. Random. Odd. Almost hilarious.

Then he suddenly whirled on her, his human hand grabbing her throat in a painful grip, and it wasn’t hilarious anymore. “You—!”

“Careful,” she wheezed out, eyes watering. “Wouldn’t wanna—damage—merchandise!”

His fingers twitched on her throat, squeezing even more tightly for a second, and then he let go. She doubled over, coughing and massaging her neck, eyes streaming more from shock than anything else. She wondered how long she could keep pushing him like this before he _truly_ snapped and actually did kill her. Or would he never do that? Was the mission really so important that he would put up with anything she did?

Then it hit her: she had just thrown all the food away that they had.

She covered her face with her hands and shook her head. _I just threw all of our food away in a childish fit…_

 _…But I would_ totally _do it all over again._ She smiled to herself. Then she wondered if she was going insane. The Sophie from a week ago would never have done something so reckless and prone to get her killed.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice they were approaching a small rock that jutted out of the side and led to a four foot drop on the mountainside steeply sloping beneath. He walked around the rock but she walked right onto it and fell off it. She let out a small scream, hit the ground, and kept going, tumbling head over heels, rolling, hurtling down the mountainside. “Uh, ah, _ah_ , uh, ah—” All she could do was let out short breathless cries of shock and pain as she kept rolling down the mountainside, her shoulders and head and arms slamming into rocks jutting out of the ground. The sky, the ground, the sky, the mountain sideways—her view swirled around and around as she fell down the mountain. She felt like she was being tumbled around in a washing machine as she went down, down, down. She flung out an arm to try and grab onto something to slow down but all she grabbed was a handful of grass. Her arm nearly twisted over itself as she didn’t let the grass go in time and she suddenly slammed right into a tree just as the slope became less steep and leveled out.

She lay on the ground for a moment, blinking and unable to move due to the intense pain everywhere. Her breath had been knocked out of her and all she could do was open and close her mouth for a few moments, like a fish out of water. Something silver flashed in front of her blurry vision and her first random thought was, _The Snitch!_ Her second thought was: _The Snitch is golden, not silver_. She rubbed her eyes, taking in slow, wheezing breaths, and sat up gingerly. The silver blur formed and sharpened into an arm—his arm. He was slowly shaking it in front of her, crouching in front of her and staring at her, his dark eyebrows flat and drawn over his eyes.

“I’m okay,” she said, breathing heavily, leaning against the tree and looking up the steep mountainside. She’d fallen down that whole thing and _survived_.

“Are you incapable of watching where you walk?” he asked acidly.

“You’re really talkative now, you know,” she said by way of answer, still breathing heavily. “It’s kind of”—she panted once—“weird.”

Satisfied that she was alive and didn’t have any broken bones, he stood up, grabbed one of her hands in an iron grip, and hauled her to her feet. She bent over, trying to breathe normally, and winced at the sharp, poking pain all over her body. Tumbling down a mountain and hitting a bunch of small, sharp rocks on the way tended to do that to you. Her clothes were dirty, grass-stained, and had many little rips and tears in them now. _And I_ just _got these. Man._

“Let’s go,” he ordered, not waiting any longer. She tried to pull out of his grip but he only tightened it painfully in response and hauled her after him. He moved at a quick pace and she stumbled as she tried to keep up, but his uncomfortable grip kept her upright and moving—which was exactly what he wanted, she supposed. They made their way like this down the mountainside, Sophie trying to tune out the person keeping her on a leash and take in the view around her as she went. Either she was sweating from exertion or the temperature really was warming up as they went down because she was sweating profusely by now. The sky was a pale blue and she felt like she could breathe more easily the further they went down. Strange. The mountains had bits of forest clumped on them but the forests became denser and more widespread the further they went. The valley they were headed to seemed to be almost exclusively forest. Sophie hoped there weren’t any huge spiders or other terrible insects. She hated killing them but she would if she had to, because she was _terrified_ of them.

She’d thought all of South America was very tropical, like the Amazon rainforest, but this greenery seemed more wooded, the type of natural scenery she’d seen in pictures of Colorado and Yellowstone National Park—except without pine trees and evergreens. The ground was a thick, almost scrubby bright green grass and lush greenery grew everywhere, trees and brush and bushes, huge boulders and craggy mountain faces covered in soft green moss. Tiny clusters of violet and yellow flowers sprung up now and then as they walked; she wanted to pick one but he didn’t give her the chance to grab any. She heard the shrill sound of birds and some insects buzzing and see-sawing through the air and the faintest wind rustled the grass and trees around them. The tips of the mountains that surrounded them were capped in pure blue-white ice, giving them an almost ethereal look, misty silvery-white clouds hanging around the peaks. She could see the blue stream—it looked larger and larger the closer they got—weaving through the valley and wondered from which large body of water it originated. Or perhaps it was melted water from the snow at the mountain peaks. It was all very amazing for someone who’d never been this far into wilderness before. The small man-made “natural” parks she’d visited didn’t even compare.

Even though he moved at a fast pace, their overall progress was slow and steady. They were forced to slow down at some places due to steeper slopes and even had to go the long way around once or twice to avoid very steep drops a couple dozen feet. At one point they had to drop down five feet—there was really no way around it—and he picked her up around the waist and leaped down before she’d even realized what he was doing, landing with a loud thud, crushing the dirt and rock underneath them. Then he grabbed her wrist and they were off again, her traipsing and tripping behind him.

They reached the base of the mountain by nightfall. The only reason they even managed to get down that quickly was because their plane had crashed into the middle of the mountain and not the true peak. As it was, they were still quite a ways from the true valley. The ground was leveling out but the valley was still further below them, a good few miles away it seemed to Sophie. Her legs felt weak and wobbly but just as she made to sit down on a large rock in her path, he tugged her arm impatiently so hard that it almost wrenched out of her socket.

“What are you doing?” she yowled, rubbing her arm and wincing. “We’re at the bottom!”

“We’re exposed. We keep going.” He pointed to the dense forest of the true valley.

Sophie’s jaw fell. Her legs were _aching_ from walking down all day, her stomach was growling, and she needed to sit down and rest. “Are you kidding?” she asked weakly. “That must be like miles away! I’m going to pass out.”

“There’s water there,” was his response.

 _Okay—that’s a good point_. Sophie paused and pretended to think about it, but they both knew he wasn’t really giving her a choice. So she sighed and yanked her arm out of his grasp, saying, “It’s flat ground now.” He let her go and they set out again.

The sky kept darkening as they walked and a playful breeze blew around them, making the grass and the leaves on the trees rustle. Insects chirped and shrilled in the heady warm-cool night air and Sophie couldn’t help but look up and spin around as she marveled at the scene around her. The dark silhouettes of mountains rose up on either side majestically, the grass looked like a green sea in front of her, and she could see hundreds of stars glittering in the night sky. She’d never seen so many stars before. The lights of D.C. had always masked their glow. She’d never been so disconnected from civilization before and she wondered why she hadn’t done it before. Aside from the whole being kidnapped and starving and tired and beaten and bruised part…it was _amazing_. She bit back a smile as she stared up at the shimmering constellations against a navy sky as she walked, walking more and more slowly as she took the universe in. One of her favorite songs—“Midnight” by Coldplay—echoed faintly in her head as she walked. _“Leave a light on…”_ she sang wordlessly to herself, looking up at the many lights glowing in the sky.

Things would probably look disgusting tomorrow, in the harsh light of day and under his cold gaze. Things had looked disgusting for a while now. But at least she had _this_ moment. She would lock this moment away in her chest and carry it with her. The next time he hit her or the next time anyone hurt her—or locked her up—or whatever fate beheld her…she would think of this moment. One of the few times Sophie Duran truly allowed herself to see and _feel_ the beauty of the world around her instead of hiding from it.

They walked steadily for two hours and her feet felt like bruised, bloody stubs by the time they reached the forest. Sophie was ready to collapse by the first tree they passed but he grunted, “Water,” and she knew he meant they had to keep going until they reached the lake. So they kept walking. The trees masked the night sky above them and she moved instinctively closer to him, feeling afraid of what could be lurking in the darkness.

It took them a good half hour to finally reach the huge lake that sparkled calmly in the middle of this section of the valley. Sophie collapsed near the edge and cupped her hands, drinking in probably a whole gallon of water. It was probably full of bugs and harmful bacteria but she didn’t even care. Then she splashed water on her face and hair and, dripping water, she crawled backward until she reached soft grass, and collapsed. The temperature was cool but warm enough that she could sleep on her own this time. She gazed up at the glittering constellations above and hot tears pricked her eyes. She was happy but she was breaking apart on the inside. She had no one to share this beauty with—only a cold, empty robot watching her always. And she would likely die soon. She wished she could call her parents and tell them she loved them one last time. She regretted being so blank with her mother during their last call. Why hadn’t she seen that it was the only way her mom knew how to care about her?

Tears slowly leaking down her cheeks and into her ears and hair, smiling slightly, Sophie fell asleep while tracing star patterns with her eyes.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: A slightly longer chapter! Leave a review and let me know what you think! Cheers.

Sophie woke to something warm, wet, and…rough? Brushing over her forehead? She wrinkled her nose in her sleep and threw her arm out wildly, trying to push whatever it was away. Her hand hit something soft and scratchy and she opened her eyes in alarm—only to stare into the eyes of a small furry creature standing over her, staring down at her, looking like it was smiling. Her mouth fell open when she realized it was a baby alpaca.

It was the sad truth that Sophie didn’t have any experience with animals at all. Her mother was allergic to most house pets and Sophie was—you guessed it—nervous of animals. She hadn’t always been this way. As a young child, she’d been vivacious and full of life and mischief, inclined to curiosity and getting into trouble…it was the reason she had gained the abilities she had, in fact, her tendency to go places she shouldn’t have gone to. But as she grew older and more accidents happened around her, her parents isolated her more and more—for her own protection, they said—and she became naturally inclined to nervousness. Going off to college—the first college—had been her first chance at freedom in a long time…and then it had all come crashing down due to Sophie’s own stupidity. Ever since then, she’d been afraid of everything: people, technology, new experiences, cars, animals…

But she’d basically been _forced_ to experience new things now. She was slowly changing. So even though she froze in fright for a moment, thinking the alpaca might mean to chomp on her head, she relaxed almost instantaneously, realizing how stupid she was being. _It’s an alpaca, not a mountain lion. They don’t eat people. And it’s a baby!_

Her heart melted when she looked into the creature’s huge, curious eyes. She very slowly sat up so as to not alarm it and then gently reached out and patted it. It felt fluffy but also scratchy, thick masses of tangled wool covering its fluffy little body. It looked like a pure white cloud on legs and Sophie found herself laughing as it stood next to her and carefully looked at her. It was the cutest thing she thought she’d ever seen. She could see a group of alpacas—larger ones—standing at the far edge of the lake in the distance. _Ah, so baby here has decided to take a little field trip._

“Look at you,” she crooned to it, softly patting it, not sure what else to do. “Cute little baby. Sweet little _baby_.” Some kind of maternal instinct she’d never even realized she had was taking over and all she wanted to do was cuddle the animal and sing it a lullaby or something.

 _Where’s the Winter Soldier?_ She twisted around and looked all around but didn’t see him in sight. That meant nothing, of course; forest surrounded the large lake on all sides. He could have been hiding within the trees anywhere, though why he would do that she didn’t know. When she turned back to the baby alpaca, she was surprised and disappointed to see that it was on its way back around the lake to its parents.

“Wait, don’t go!” she called but she might have been a rock for all the attention it paid her cry. She watched it go, wondering if she should chase after it—but no, why would she do that? What was she going to do? Force it to become her pet? Its parents or herd or whatever would probably kill her if she tried to go after the baby anyway. Did alpacas trample people? She didn’t know and she didn’t want to find out firsthand.

She turned at the sound of footsteps to see the Winter Soldier emerging from the forest, pocketing a knife. She had no idea what he’d been doing and she didn’t really care. Maybe he’d been using the bathroom. “Hey, Winter,” she called, feeling almost _relaxed_ due to her encounter with the baby alpaca. “Look.” She pointed to the alpacas across the lake, who were turning around and already making their way away from them, heading back to wherever they had come from. “Alpacas!”

He stood at the rocky, dirty bank of the lake and stared out at them, expression impassive—and then he looked at her and said, “What did you call me?” He didn’t sound pleased. At all.

“Winter,” she said. “I have to call you _something_. You know _my_ name.”

“I’m the Winter Soldier.”

“That’s not a name, that’s a title.”

“I’m the Winter Soldier,” he repeated.

“I know!” she said, frustrated, getting to her feet and brushing herself off. “But that’s not a _name_! Unless you have a real name you go by?” He was silent. “Alex? Jack? Collin?” He remained silent. She huffed. “You must have a _name_. No one is born and doesn’t get named. Um…Tom? Will? Gary? James?”

He twitched suddenly, an involuntary shuddering jerk of the shoulders and fingers, and growled, “I’m the Winter Soldier. No name.”

“Then I’m going to call you Winter,” she snapped.

He slowly tilted his head to look up at the sky and she _thought_ she heard him let out a long-suffering sigh but she might have just imagined it. Finally he looked back at her, hands clenched tightly at his side, and said, “What are you doing now?”

She looked out at the lake, which wasn’t murky as she’d assumed last night but glittering crystal clear. It looked fresh, cold, and clean—exactly what her dirty clothes and aching scalp and body needed. “I’m going to take a bath,” she decided. “And wash all my clothes.” She still had her original bundle of clothes, her yoga pants and t-shirt. “What are _you_ going to do?”

“Stay here.”

“And _watch_ me?” she squeaked. The lake was clear as glass—he would be able to see everything, unless she swam to the very middle of the lake far away…and then she would have a hard time washing her things and her hair if she was too busy treading water to stay afloat. She wasn’t a great swimmer and she didn’t want to go beyond standing level. “Hell no! Go away!”

“So you can drown yourself?” he asked cuttingly.

Sophie blinked. The thought had never even occurred to her. But even if it had, she would never have done it. She’d made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t kill herself. She would keep herself alive until someone else did the deed for her. But she certainly wasn’t going to tell _him_ that; it was a private and highly personal promise. He didn’t need to know she’d been suicidal for a while, even if he constantly suspected her of it. It occurred to Sophie how disturbing it was that he recognized that her situation was bad enough for her to possibly want to kill herself—and he still didn’t give a damn. It was like he was saying, _I know I’m making you want to kill yourself but that doesn’t matter_.

It was sick.

“Fine,” she said in a rage. “Then watch! I don’t care!” She really did care, of course, but what could she do? Not wash up? That wasn’t an option. She was dying to get clean. She would have literally murdered someone right now for some shampoo and a bar of soap. As it was, clean, cold water would have to do.

Knowing he was watching her, sitting a little ways away from the banks of the lake, Sophie decided to go about the routine in a very slow and methodical way. She set her bundle of old clothes down at the edge of the water and weighed them down with a large, smooth rock. Kicking her Converse off, she walked right into the water fully-clothed. The rocks under her feet were more like huge, very smooth and _slippery_ pebbles, covered in soft moss. Spindly-legged little water striders skated peacefully across the surface of the water and tiny little fish nibbled at Sophie’s toes. It was freshwater so she hoped there weren’t any alligators or crocodiles around. The thought made her swallow in fear. This didn’t seem like a climate or environment for alligators but one never knew. Once she was standing neck-deep in water, she very slowly pulled her clothes off until she was only in her underwear. She kept her eyes down on the water, not even wanting to see if he was looking at her or not. She hoped he wasn’t. He didn’t seem like he gave a damn about these things. She peeked up at him—and sure enough, he was staring at the mountains beyond them with narrowed eyes and a blank expression.

She shivered, though she wasn’t sure if it was from the cold water or his emptiness. Was there _anything_ in him? How had this happened to him? What happened to a man to make him this way? Had he gone through some type of terrible trauma or something? Sophie wasn’t sure she wanted to know. What if it made her feel sorry for him? He didn’t deserve her sympathy.

She slowly wrung her cargo pants, long-sleeved shirt, and jacket in the water, twisting and scrunching under the water as much as the possibly could to get the dirt and blood out of them. She could see grime coming out of them so clearly it was working a little. When she felt like she had done enough, she made her way to the shore, praying to god that he wasn’t looking at her. In only her underwear she felt wildly exposed. She quickly ripped on her old clothes—the yoga pants and t-shirt—and then carried her sopping wet, freshly washed clothes to the grass beyond the lake. She spread them out so they received full sun exposure and then she walked right back into the lake fully clothed again.

This was the tricky part. After much struggling, swearing, splashing around, and accidentally going under and ingesting water in the wrong way, she managed to take her underwear off _while_ still wearing her old clothes. She washed them the same way she had done her other set of clothes. When she was satisfied they were reasonably clean, she let out a sigh and began doggy-paddling to the center of the lake. She didn’t let herself go very far but suddenly she was treading water. She could feel panic already starting to rise in her—what if some creature got her from below? What if she slipped under? Her anxiety kept whispering ugly thoughts to her—so she worked quickly. Clamping her underwear between her legs, she pulled her t-shirt and yoga pants off. Then she somehow got her underwear back on. The whole thing left her feeling extremely drained. It was like doing underwater aerobics. She didn’t think she’d ever worked out this much before in her entire life. Once she had her underwear properly on, she doggy-paddled back to a depth she could stand at, her heart rate returning to normal once she didn’t have to tread water to stay afloat. Then she washed her old set of clothes the way she had done twice before. Once those were clean, she rushed ashore this time and spread them in the sun again before sprinting back into the lake and throwing herself in, not daring to look at him. She wasn’t a prude but the thought of _him_ —with his empty, mechanical eyes—watching her while she did this was almost too much to bear.

* * *

 

He tried not to look at her. He really did. He focused on the mountains and the sun in the distance as she splashed around idiotically, doing god knew what. He folded his arms and considered their plan for getting out of here. None of his electronics were working, either damaged from the crash or there was absolutely no signal out here—or a mix of the two. They seemed to have been dropped into total alien territory. They were going to have to keep following this valley because judging by the position of the stars and the sun, it was headed east—in the direction of Brazil. Which was exactly what they needed. If they turned around and went the opposite way, they’d end up at the ocean eventually, or perhaps Colombia.

He saw a sudden movement and his eyes snapped up, immediately scanning the surroundings for danger—but no, it was just her. The girl. She hurried out of the lake dripping wet, wearing only her undergarments, holding a sopping bundle under her arms, and she quickly yanked on a pair of her clothes. He averted his gaze, giving her the privacy she so desired, but he couldn’t help but notice that his face felt a degree warmer. He frowned to himself. Why? Was he getting ill?

He watched her swim out further in the lake, keeping a close eye in case she decided to drown herself—or even started drowning by accident. She began flailing and splashing around somewhat maniacally and he almost half-rose, thinking she was struggling—but no, she was staying afloat. She was just twisting around doing something. He had no idea what in the hell she was doing; she was far enough that even his enhanced eyesight couldn’t make it out, with her wet clothes floating and billowing around her. Shrugging slightly, he sat back down and focused on the mountains again.

Then she swam back and raced out of the lake again, yet again in her undergarments and holding a bundle of wet clothes under her arms. She was washing her clothes but he didn’t understand what this routine was, why she was running about like she was on some sort of drug. He couldn’t help but slant his eyes in her direction as she knelt, frantically patting her wet clothes down onto the grass yards away from him. Her dark, straight hair clung to her neck and back and water droplets fell off her dark lashes. He felt warm again as he couldn’t help but watch her and the oddest feeling rose up in him—a strange, hazy feeling that felt like a…memory? Or some type of…déjà vu? Some strange feeling that told him that at some point…in his memory that he couldn’t distinguish, through all the dark blurs and icy cold faded shots…he had had a very different reaction to seeing a sight like this. Something curled not altogether unpleasantly deep in his naval and his skin felt warm again.

He dropped his eyes as quick as a stone, feeling shaken to the core, his skin tingling and blood running cold. His chest felt tight with confusion and alarm. For a _moment_ there…a tiny moment…he’d wanted to _touch_ her.

Just to see if she felt as soft as she looked right now.

He pressed his hands to his eyes, wondering if he was getting heatstroke or going mad. His head seemed to be cooking inside his brain and pressure was building up behind his eyes, making him let out small grunts and hisses of pain. His breathing turned erratic and he dully wondered if he was suffering what they called a heart attack. He hadn’t thought it possible—he was in peak physical condition and didn’t suffer from the ailments that plagued normal, weak humans—but what else could explain why he felt so strange right now?

Suddenly he was up and racing toward the water, not even caring about anything other then cooling his head off. He threw himself expertly into the lake, diving under and going as deep as he could to clear his head.

* * *

 

Sophie was startled by a huge, heavy splash and looked up to see him—the Winter Soldier—dive into the lake a couple of yards away. She stumbled and float-hopped backward in alarm, wondering what he was doing. Was he coming to get her?

She slowly spun in a circle, the water making her buoyant and bouncy, warily looking around for him. She’d been rubbing her body and her scalp and hair as hard as possible, ducking under and swirling her head around the water, when he’d dove in. Her eyes scanned the lake surface, desperately looking for him. For some reason, she had the irrational fear that he was going to grab her leg and yank her below—leftover fears from a bad encounter at a community pool when she’d been ten. But he didn’t show up—nor did he surface. Who could hold their breath this long? _Well—if anyone can, it’d be him, of course_.

She decided this was a good opportunity to get out of the lake, while he wasn’t around. She splashed to the shore, hurrying as fast as she could, and ran to the first set of clothes she’d left out to dry. They were lightly damp but felt mostly dry by now so she yanked them on, yoga pants and t-shirt. She didn’t even care if her underwear was still wet—it was warm and sunny enough that if she lay on the grass, they would presently dry. Her clothes smelled like grass and fresh air and the outdoors and they felt slightly crinkly and stiff, having been wind- and sun-dried, but she didn’t care. They felt _clean_ and that was all that mattered. She smoothed down her dark brown hair as much as she could, wishing she had a comb, and then she lay back on the grass. She lifted her shirt to expose her stomach so that her undergarments would dry as fast as possible and then closed her eyes.

She slitted open one eye and looked at the lake. He still hadn’t resurfaced. _Holy crap, is he dead? Did he drown?!_ She didn’t deny it: she felt a slight thrill of horror when she realized he might actually be dead. She’d wished for him to be dead and gone so many times but now…actually faced with the reality…she realized how alone she would be out here.

Just as she’d been facing the fact that she might well and truly be alone, he cleanly burst through the surface of the water and swam to the shore in powerful, fast strokes. She watched him emerge, dripping wet, and her mouth fell open when she realized he’d gone swimming _fully clothed_ in his combat gear—including his combat boots. Who the hell did that?! Didn’t his clothes weigh an extra fifteen pounds or something? Just exactly how strong was he?

Sophie couldn’t decide if she was impressed, or more terrified of him than she ever had been before.

He collapsed on the grass a couple of yards away from Sophie and lay down just as she was laying, closing his eyes. She slowly sat up and looked at him, frowning. With his slight frown and closed eyes and wet, dark hair stuck to his cheeks and neck, he looked…oddly innocent. Boyish. He even looked _tired_. This surprised Sophie. He seemed like he had never-ending stamina and energy…but apparently not. Even he was a human, despite not seeming like one most of the time.

They both lay on the grass as the day passed. Sophie didn’t know why he wasn’t on the move considering he was normally so go, go, go but she didn’t mind so much. She felt a little weak with hunger and the warmth of the sun and the breeze made her feel incredibly listless and sleepy. She didn’t mean to, but she drifted off into sleep. It was probably very dangerous to sleep here by the lake—what if it was the local watering hole for the animals in the region _including_ the mountain lions?—but she couldn’t help it. She just felt too weak to move right now.

When she opened her eyes, the sun was on the opposite side of the sky. It wasn’t setting yet but it had turned slightly more golden and she could tell it was late afternoon. Her clothes and undergarments were completely dry and her hair felt fluffy from being air-dried. She felt amazingly clean. She slowly turned her head, expecting him to be gone—but no, he was still laying there. She stilled, wondering if he had died or something. This was definitely not like him at all, as far as she knew him.

She slowly crawled over to him and knelt next to him, looking down at his pale face. He needed a good shave. He didn’t look like he was breathing and she whispered, “Winter?” He didn’t stir. Very, _very_ slowly, she put her head down on his chest and closed her eyes, trying to feel for any chest movement or listen for a heartbeat. His clothes were too thick for her to feel a heartbeat but it didn’t matter because now she could feel the slight rise and fall of his chest and abdomen as he breathed. So he was alive. She lifted her head and looked down at him—and let out a loud scream when she realized his eyes were open and he was looking at her.

She threw herself backward and shrieked, “What the hell!” He sat up, never taking his eyes off of her, and she shrilly asked, “Were you awake that whole time?”

“No. You woke me up.” He stretched slowly, pushing his shoulders back. “What were you doing?”

“Checking to make sure you were alive,” she snapped.

“And you didn’t feel for a pulse.” It wasn’t a question—a statement. She colored. He was right, there’d been an easier and much less touchy-feely way to see if he was alive. Why hadn’t she done that? _Because I’m an idiot, that’s why_ , she told herself.

“I forgot,” she said sullenly. “Sorry, I’ll make sure to do that next time I think you’re dead.”

He looked almost thoughtful as he slowly said, “That’s twice you could have stabbed me in the neck and you didn’t. Why?”

Sophie was stunned. She realized that it hadn’t even _occurred_ to her this time that she had the opportunity to kill him. That thought seemed to have slipped away entirely. “I need you to survive,” she admitted grudgingly. “I don’t know how to get out of this valley alone.”

“I’m not taking you home.” Another statement.

She sighed. “I know.” Home was a pipe dream right now.

“I’m completing the mission.”

“I know.” She also knew that this—this laying around on the grass, this temporary peace they seemed to have made at the moment—was all fleeting and meaningless in the grand scheme of things. He was going to finish his mission, she knew this now, and deliver her to whoever he worked for and when they had her… Her stomach shuddered sickeningly. She could only hope that they only wanted to hold her for ransom—but _deep_ down inside, she knew that hope was getting fainter and fainter by the minute. Her parents were wealthy, as many people in Washington D.C. were, but they were nowhere near wealthy enough to warrant the insane amount of effort that had been orchestrated for her kidnapping.

No…these people wanted her for more. Her throat tightened and her lips pressed together in a hard line. They wanted her for what she could do.

“Then let’s get going,” she said suddenly, standing up and gathering up her other set of clothes. “We wouldn’t want you to be late in completing your mission.” She began marching around the lake, not even checking to see if he was following. There was really only one direction for them to go in so it didn’t matter if he followed or not. They would end up at the same place anyway.

Since they had essentially slept most of the day away—he must have been more tired than she’d thought—they had enough energy to keep walking late into the night. The lake came to an end but it narrowed into a decent-sized stream that spanned about fifteen feet across (it was more of a small river, really) and kept snaking through the valley and through the dense forest that dotted the valley, intermixing with patches of grassy fields. They walked through it all, keeping close to the river, silent and watchful for any predators or other human beings. Any sign at all that they weren’t alone out here. At one point the valley became so narrow that it was essentially two mountain slopes merging into each other and they had to hike and climb up for an hour before the valley widened and flattened out again. She saw a few more bunches of alpacas and some small, furry creatures that resembled squirrels scurrying up tree trunks and disappearing into holes in the ground. Huge, ugly birds that looked like vultures glided overhead once or twice from one mountain perch to another.

They walked and walked and walked. It seemed that the walking would never end. That the mountains would never end. The blades tucked into Sophie’s shoes began to chafe her with every step but she tried to hide her limping from him. She couldn’t let him know that she had two of his daggers. They were all she had in terms of self defense. Temperatures dropped as they trekked through the valley. It never got as cold as it had up in the mountains—thank God, because Sophie was never sleeping that close to the Winter Soldier ever again—but she still ended up pulling the long-sleeved shirt over her t-shirt and then zipping up the oversized hoodie over both of those. She threw her hood up, stuck her hands in the front pockets, and kept trekking. She kept a lookout for any wild animals but so far they hadn’t seen anything terrifying. They’d passed what looked like a herd of _bison_ at one point—though Sophie had no idea if they were truly bison, not being an expert on the animals of the Andes mountains—and she’d seen Winter looking at them speculatively but she really did not want to know what was going through his mind then.

She couldn’t see very well in the dark but his hand would shoot out and grab her shoulder almost painfully if she was about to trip down a hill or something. Eventually the forests thinned out to just fields and then the view in front of her was clear: stars twinkling in the dark, thin clouds blanketing the sky, dark mountain silhouettes rising up everywhere she turned. She had no idea where they were headed but she could only hope that they were walking in the right direction and would end up somewhere normal. She didn’t want to die in the Andes mountains, though judging by the pain in her feet, she had a feeling she might actually breathe her last breaths out here.

They walked through the night and Sophie wondered if it was normal that they hadn’t encountered any people out here. She also wondered if it was normal that she had the sudden urge to eat grass. Her stomach had gone past growling loudly and embarrassingly—now it was only a dull, gnawing ache. She couldn’t tell what she found more horrifying: the terrible hunger…or the fact that she was getting used to it.

And she had no idea how Winter was surviving. If she was hungry, she couldn’t imagine how he felt. He looked like he needed as much calories as an Olympic gold medalist swimmer. When she glanced at him she noticed that his face _was_ looking slightly paler and more gaunt than normal… The shadows under his eyes seemed darker. But he wore the same serious, dead expression on his face, a cross between total blankness, a scowl, and a childish pout. She couldn’t make it out. Was he thinking nothing or was he thinking everything?

Dawn broke, washing the skies with milky blues and golden colors, and Sophie let out a sigh of relief. They hadn’t encountered any danger but hiking through the Andes mountains at night had been a nerve-wracking, chilly experience that she didn’t want to ever experience again. Unfortunately she had the feeling she would be doing it again if they didn’t find their way out of these godforsaken mountains _soon_.

She and Winter hadn’t spoken in a long while so she decided to voice something that had been bothering her for a while now. “So why exactly did our plane crash anyway?” she asked. Predictably, he remained silent. Sophie had expected this. However, she was slowly learning how to work with him. From her experience, it seemed that when she started babbling nonstop, he usually spoke to shut her up. So she took a deep breath and got started. “Because that was _terrifying_. I’ve been in planes before, of course, and I’ve imagined going down—and I’ve read about planes going down—but no one can ever really prepare you for what it’s like, you know? The way your body shuts down because you think, _This is it. This is the end_.” She paused thoughtfully, looking at the slowly lightening sky. “But despite all that, it was like my heart started beating _faster_. Like even though I thought I was going to die and was shutting down, my heart wanted me to survive. Unless my heart somehow knew I _was_ going to survive. Do you believe in premonition like that? Amazing. But horrible. I never want to go through that again. So I guess I want to know why our plane went down, so I can make sure to avoid that in the future. Did the plane malfunction? It didn’t seem like it was—”

“He betrayed Hydra, alright?” he snarled.

 _Victory_. A ringing silence hung between them as Sophie nearly let out a yell of joy and his hands clenched, his body stiffened, as he seemed to realize what an error he’d made. _He let something slip! He finally let something slip!_

Of course, the information meant nothing to Sophie. She had no idea who, or what, Hydra was. But still, it was a _name_ and a name meant information and information could be deadly in the wrong hands…out of any person, Sophie knew this best of all.

“Did he, now?” she asked slyly. “And how would, uh, Hydra feel about that?”

“Listen, you—” He was whispering, swinging around, and suddenly Sophie felt the cold metal of a blade being pressed to her throat. She froze, not daring to breathe. “If you _say_ —if you _mention_ —” He seemed to have been rendered incoherent. Sophie’s blood was running cold, her heart was pounding, and she had broken out in a cold sweat of fear—but she very slowly raised her head and gave him the most disdainful look she could, mustering every bit of courage and bravado and show that she had in her.

“Do it,” she challenged. “Because I’m going to keep asking.”

His mouth twisted and he bared his teeth, his eyes wild and rabid, pressing his blade more tightly against her throat. His other hand, the metal one, gripped the back of Sophie’s head, holding it in place so she couldn’t jerk away from the blade. His fingers dug painfully into her hair. “I—” His voice was a mere whisper. “I _will_ —”

“You _won’t_ ,” she whispered back, hardly breathing, her hands trembling either with fear or rage. She couldn’t tell. “The mission, remember? So you may as well tell me who—or what—Hydra is. Who am I going to tell, huh? I’m going to be delivered to him eventually anyway. Consider it…educating me.”

“Maybe I need to educate you on keeping your mouth shut,” he hissed. The blade pressed into her throat and she felt a sharp pinch as it nicked her. She had nothing left to say so she waited. It took all of her effort, her hands trembling at her sides, to stand there and let him press the blade to her throat, his hand holding her head...but she did it. She didn’t know where she summoned the courage from, how she didn’t break down in tears or pee her pants, but she somehow did it.

Finally, he slowly, _ever_ so slowly, lowered his blade and released his grip on her head. Her fingers flew to her throat and came away stained with red. She looked at her red-stained fingertips and then slowly traced a finger across the thin cut on her neck. She looked up at him, her mouth a flat line, and his face seemed to be hidden in half-shadow with the sun rising slowly behind him, throwing golden-orange light into her eyes. She took a step forward and he jerked back a step, almost as if he expected her to attack him. She rubbed her bloody fingers on her jacket, shouldered past him, and said, “Let’s keep going.”

They walked in silence for a good half an hour as the sky kept lightening, the morning began to warm up, birds gliding past them overhead, and suddenly, his rough voice spoke beside her. “Hydra is—”

She slowly turned to look at him. He wasn’t looking at her. He was frowning at his hands as he walked, examining them so carefully that it seemed he was looking for the secrets of the universe in the flesh and metal. “They are—” He stopped again and scowled, bit his lip, bared his teeth. His eyebrows were drawn together and he seemed torn between utter bewilderment and total anger.

“They are?” she prompted quietly.

“They’re the ones who—I am—”

A strange, cold feeling was growing in Sophie’s chest as she watched him speak haltingly. She had never seen him refer to _himself_ as a person in such a…vulnerable way before. He’d never seemed like a real person to her before—not to herself and not even to _himself_ , it seemed. He certainly didn’t carry himself as if he were a real, functioning man who knew who he was. But now…it looked like he was struggling with something. Sophie wanted to help him say the words but she had no idea what he was trying to say. Was he telling her something about Hydra, which appeared to be a group? Or something about himself?

“I’m their asset,” he finally said, speaking slowly, choosing the words very carefully. His voice had become robotic again. “I am their…” His voice trailed off. She saw him take a sharp intake of breath. “Asset,” he repeated, murmuring the word.

_Who is this man?_

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry for the wait, lovelies! First it was midterms (somehow I survived...). Then Daredevil season 2 came out. And then I got pretty sick. Hope you guys like this chapter! Let me know what you think.

_Asset_. The word turned over and over and over in his mind, glinting cold and sharp and spiky. It tasted like ice and blood and it felt like a sharp stab to his eardrums, a pressure on his eyes, a metal band around his head, pressing and crushing his skull and his mind.

He knew he was the Asset.

He knew this.

He’d been called this so many times before.     

So why…

Did it feel so strange now? Why was the word bursting and blooming hot, acid yellow and blood red in his mind, on his tongue, ringing in his ears?

His vision seemed to distort as they walked. The sun shone down on them, a gorgeous green valley stretched in front of them, the girl led the way, her dark hair skimming her thin shoulders, and he…

He thought he saw a ghostly image at the corner of his eye. If he looked at it directly, it vanished—but he could feel it. He could feel them. There were people talking to him. A man—a...a boy? A boy with the sun gleaming on his blond hair as he put hands in pockets and looked at the ground, thin shoulders slumped—

He whirled and saw nothing but—

Felt the ghostly brush of small fingers—tiny sharp bursts of electricity—against his human fingertips, the mountains and sun and sky distorting until he was almost outside on a lawn—on a lawn with a small child, a girl, dark-haired—the girl? The mission? No—

No, a different—

Braids, freckles, gap-toothed smile…

His hand jerked up in a clenched fist, almost as if he were making the victory fist, and he violently pivoted, eyes roaming the landscape for someone—

Who he knew he wasn’t going to find.

Who he didn’t even know…but felt like he did.

He pressed his cybernetic fingers to the backs of his eyes, trying to cool them down, but the metal was hot. His arm had thermal regulation programmed into it to prevent it from overheating or freezing in extreme temperatures but it wasn’t hot enough for the regulation to have kicked in, which meant that his arm would remain uncomfortably warm for now. The last thing he needed right now was more heat when his mind felt like it was slowly melting through the cracks in his fractured skull—

Fractures—

Frac—

A sharp pain in the base of his head and his arm, the cold, a scream, pain, _pain_ , his brain dying, red-hot, white-hot, icy-hot, icy-cold, _cold_ —

A sawing pain—

He blinked away the confusion and took a deep, shuddering, snarling breath. _It’s the situation_ , he told himself, commanding himself to stay composed. _It’s the situation. We are lost. We haven’t eaten. I have lost control. I am experiencing a normal hallucinatory setback due to lack of food, overheating, and the burden of keeping the girl alive and well while finishing the mission as fast as possible._ Finishing the mission on time was beyond possibility anymore.

Food. His stomach tightened. Food would solve all of their problems. His body worked in a slight catch-22. He was programmed to bear reasonably well on small amounts of food. He had been trained and programmed and conditioned and tested beyond reason of doubt that he could survive in the wild with little food for long periods of time. This was necessary for him to be Hydra’s asse—

Asset—

For him to be Hydra’s. For some reason…his mind wouldn’t let him use the word without mentally stuttering over it. A glitch?

However…no matter how well he was trained to survive without food…his sped-up metabolism, physical activity, and physical size also required that he receive optimum nutrition to function at his best capability. And he hadn’t received optimum nutrition in quite a while. They’d been gone longer than they’d anticipated. Why would they have anticipated this? He’d never completed a mission more than a second late before. Had he delivered the girl days ago as he should have, he would have received his specifically-created, biochemically-modified, enhanced parenteral nutrition feedings and then he would have…

Gone back into the deep cold.

He needed sustenance. Something with protein. Meat.

The girl needed something as well. His sharp eyes took in every angle, every aspect, every line of her being. She’d been slender when he’d first taken her but now she was bordering on dangerously thin. Her old bruises were yellow and fading and still she was covered with new bruises, cuts, and injuries—some she had done to herself, some he had done to her. And still she marched on. He noticed the slight limp she walked with, as if she had a pebble in her shoe. He noticed how her head drooped forward slightly. And _still_ she marched on.

It was almost as if she was determined to outlast him. He was almost in awe. His weakest-looking target had somehow ended up being his strongest. He’d dealt with grown men. Political leaders, CEOs, rich and wealthy people with body guards and expensive security systems. And none had lasted as long as she had. Granted, none of them had been put through the paces like she had—but that only made her survival all the more startling. He would have brought her back to life had she had the nerve to die on him but he had to admit, he _had_ fully expected her to die during some point of this mission. The possibility had always been in the back of his mind, spinning with all the other possibilities that he was always thinking of.

He was changing his mind now.

He was changing his view of her.

* * *

 

Sophie was dreaming about food. Her body seemed to be moving on autopilot. Her feet kept trudging forward and her eyes remained fixed on the mountains in the horizon but she wasn’t taking any of it in. She felt like she had entered a dreamlike fugue state. She was moving through the world and the world was moving through her. Her stomach had stopped aching and now felt it like was folding in on itself. She was vaguely aware of the fact that she was slowly dying—if the starvation didn’t get her, the wild would, and if the wild didn’t get her, then Hydra would—but it didn’t even seem to bother her anymore.

Nothing bothered her right now.

Emotions were just too…exhausting right now. All she could do was numbly think about food—proper food, which felt like a hazy memory at this point—and keep walking in the hopes that she might accidentally walk off a cliff and end this agony. She would have dropped to the grass and eaten it but even that would have taken too much effort.

She wasn’t aware of time passing, so lost was she in her own thoughts, but the colors in the sky slowly changed as the day marched on and suddenly she was on all fours, shaking with exhaustion, and then she was collapsing on her stomach, laying her head down on the grass and closing her eyes. Drifting. Dreaming. She felt, rather than heard, him crouch near her and shake her but she was too far gone to respond to him. He could have punted her across the valley and she wouldn’t have had the energy to open her eyes. Her skin felt stretched as tight as elastic over her bones and her stomach gnawed in on itself.

His presence vanished like smoke on the wind. She didn’t know how she knew but she just somehow could feel that he had left.

Sophie didn’t know how long he had been gone but she slowly became aware of a smell…the smell of something cooking…the smell of _meat_ cooking… Her mouth watered and her eyes slowly opened a bit. She stared up at the darkening evening sky and slowly breathed in the most delicious smell she had ever smelled in her entire existence. No food had ever smelled this good and she wondered if she had died and gone to heaven. Laying here on the soft grass, looking up at a violet sky with the first hints of twinkling stars coming out to play, her mind hazy, the smell of delicious cooking meat wafting around…it _almost_ felt like a heaven of some sorts.

Slowly she became aware of heat washing over her and the crackling, sizzling sounds of something cooking. Her eyes opened wider and she slowly sat up as if she were a zombie. She turned her head to see that the Winter Soldier had built a small fire and staked two large branches into the ground. Stretched between both of them, roasting over the fire, was the dark shape of some sort of animal. Small. Looked like a deer but Sophie wasn’t sure if deer existed in the Andes mountains. She didn’t think so.

“Winter,” she whispered. She didn’t think she’d spoken loud enough for him to hear—indeed, she could barely hear her own voice—but he looked up and she saw his eyes gleaming in the darkness. For one terrifying moment, a primal part of her froze in fear, telling her that danger was near, to run, to get away—

But then everything was back to normal. He looked as dangerous as he normally did, not especially more.

"What…is that?” she asked, slowly edging closer to the fire, her mouth watering.

“Food,” he said tonelessly.

She smiled tiredly. “Great explanation.” She leaned dangerously close to the fire, closed her eyes, and inhaled slowly—

And suddenly he was pushing her back with forceful fingertips, painfully prodding her collarbones. Her eyes opened in surprise and they flew open even wider when he picked up the ends of a chunk of her hair and held it up silently, allowing her to examine the singed ends. “Watch it,” he said, and then he moved back around the fire so he was across from her.

Looking at her hair made Sophie wonder how she looked now. She wasn’t being vain, she was just being curious. She hadn’t seen her face in a very long time and considering all that she’d been through… The thing was, Sophie had always been an extraordinarily pretty girl. She was petite, had straight dark brown hair cut till slightly past her shoulders, pink lips, and large sage-green eyes framed by long, dark lashes. And she wasn’t going to lie and say that she’d wished she were ugly growing up, because what person _didn’t_ want to have good looks? However, her good looks had ended up being a curse. She’d withdrawn more and more as she grew up and her greatest desire was to be left the hell alone. Unfortunately, with looks like hers, girls were always trying to befriend her—thinking she was the pretty, popular type who perhaps liked to party—and guys were always hitting on her. And it always made Sophie incredibly anxious. She had always had trouble turning people down on their invitations to go out or hang out and she had wished once or twice that she was more plain so people would let her melt into the shadows and just _let her be_.

She wondered what she looked like now. She’d lost weight, she’d been attacked, she hadn’t properly bathed or eaten in a long while now. Her skin probably didn’t have that healthy glow. She probably had shadows under her eyes and bruises on her face. Her face was probably thinner. Her lips were dry and cracked. Her hair definitely _felt_ more limp and dull. It was almost ironic that just was she was getting braver her looks had fallen from their prime. Was there some sort of meaning in that? She had no doubt that her college English professors would have found one.

“What is it?” she asked, staring at the animal, mesmerized. He didn’t answer. She could see the flames reflected in his eyes. Suddenly she noted the heaps of fluff that lay around the ground at his feet. Thick clumps of white fluff…the animal’s fur. Deer didn’t have that kind of fur. The fluff reminded her of the baby alpaca that had woken her by licking her face. Her eyes slowly raised to the small animal roasting over the fire and her stomach turned slightly, realizing with mild horror that it was a _baby alpaca_ that was roasting over the fire.

She wanted to bring herself to feel more horrified about it—but she was just too weak and hungry and tired to really care. _Besides, that’s how this world works_ , she thought to herself bitterly. _The weak get eaten and destroyed_. She and the baby alpaca, they were in the same boat. Both of them were slowly being burned by the Winter Soldier. She just hoped it wasn’t the _exact_ baby alpaca that had woken her (though that was pretty unlikely). She didn’t even want to know how he had captured a baby alpaca without its parents giving him trouble. Her mind was filled with images of him slyly luring a curious, innocent baby alpaca away from its herd or group or whatever it was called…

Her stomach flipped unpleasantly and she closed her eyes. _Don’t picture that_.

After twenty minutes, he pulled the animal off of the sticks it was propped on. Sophie thought it was ready to eat then, but no—he tore the animal apart slowly into pieces and then held the pieces over the fire, letting them cook thoroughly. It was a slow, painstaking process and he had to move his hand away from the fire routinely to avoid cooking his own hand. Thirty minutes later all of the pieces were done. Then he said, “Come here,” and Sophie scooted around the fire to sit near him. He handed her a piece and she tore into it, not even caring that she was eating like a wild animal. She hadn’t had proper food in so long.

In her previous life—the life that had been untainted by the Winter Soldier—she had been picky about her meat. She only ate white meat and refused to eat the dark meat of a chicken. She was squeamish about fat, gristle, and bones. And even now, she had to take a deep breath before diving into whatever unknown body part she was eating. She was starving but she hadn’t been away from civilization long enough to completely abandon all her dislikes and likes. However…the hunger overrode it all. She was just going to have to get over it.

And get over it she did.

Spit dripped down her chin and she wiped it away with her arm while tearing into the…whatever she was eating. She hoped it wasn’t something weird like throat. Was throat meat even edible? She busied her mind with these thoughts while finishing the first piece and then snatching up another. She didn’t know if Winter was looking at her but she wasn’t going to look up and check. _Let a girl eat like a wolf in peace, right?_

After her third piece, her stomach felt comfortably full and she stopped, slowly wiping her hands on the grass near her and staring into the fire. The alpaca had tasted…well, if she was being honest, she hadn’t noticed the taste at all. It had been hot and it had been cooked and it had been meat. That was all she had noticed. But she noticed it had been dry with sort of a goat flavor to it. It wasn’t very fatty, thank god. If had been fatty, she might have vomited.

 _Good to know that I can still afford to be picky even after all this._ She smiled and then she laughed to herself, unable to control her ridiculous thoughts. She glanced over at Winter and was startled to see him staring at her. She was unable to read his expression and blushed slightly (though she had no idea why). “What?” she asked self-consciously, leaning away from him and folding her arms in a pitiful defense mechanism.

He shook his head and looked down at the piece of meat in his hands. She rolled her eyes and looked away. Of course he wasn’t going to respond. He gave new meaning to the phrase “silent and deadly.” Of course…if she was going to be honest…he also gave new meaning to the phrase “tall, dark, and handsome.”

Her cheeks felt hot as she squinted into the fire. _Stupid Sophie. Why did I think that?_ However, it was true. She couldn’t help but think it. She was too much of a book lover and she’d read one too many books with heroes or anti-heroes described such. But she’d never come across a character who fit the bill as well as the Winter Soldier did. He was definitely tall (to Sophie’s 5’4” frame), his hair and general aura definitely made him dark, and his face—if Sophie was going to be totally unbiased and ignore all his actions and behaviors—was definitely handsome. Aside from the whole empty-eyes and cuts, bruises, and scratches.

Still, that didn’t excuse anything he’d done or who he was…or wasn’t. Sophie still wasn’t sure if he was all there. If he was fully a man. Fully a human. She was definitely beginning to doubt it, based on how empty and cold he was. No real person could be this emotionless. It was like he’d had a lobotomy. The thought sent a shiver down her spine.

He finished eating and then they sat around in silence for a while, both staring into the flames. Sophie wondered what he was thinking, if he was thinking anything at all—but of course he would never volunteer that information so she didn’t even bother asking. They sat there, a faint golden glow on their withdrawn, closed faces, and the fire slowly burned out until it was just deep orange embers—and then it went out completely, curling tendrils of gray smoke fading into the darkness above them, the stars hidden under a blanket of clouds tonight. Sophie wondered if it was going to rain. She hoped not. She moved back to the other side of the fire pit and lay down, pressing her hands together and using them as a pillow, staring at the ground and thinking about nothing in particular.

She had drifted off to sleep when she was suddenly woken by terrible shrieking cry echo from somewhere near them. Her eyes flew open and she sat up like a shot, rubbing her eyes quickly. Hardly daring to breathe, she listened closely but heard nothing. _Did I just dream that?_ She looked around and saw that Winter was sitting up, slowly looking around. So it hadn’t been just her.

“What was that?” she whispered just as they heard it again—a shrieking, guttural, snarling cry that echoed from somewhere west of them. It sounded louder and closer this time. Her heart seized in her chest and she scrambled over to Winter, crouching near him and not even caring how cowardly she seemed. “What _was_ that?” she hissed fearfully, eyes darting left and right, looking for the source of the noise. It hadn’t sounded human.

“Mountain lion,” he murmured so low that she almost didn’t catch it.

Her blood went cold. “What?” she began but he reached behind him and gripped her wrist in a crushing grip, pressing down to indicate that she needed to shut up now. He slowly stood up and she followed suit. He let go of her and slowly reached into his pocket, pulling out a gleaming blade.

“Why not a gun?” she hissed in a panic, clutching his arm and peering around him, heart hammering.

“So we can call every other predator to us?” he whispered sarcastically.

They waited in tense silence, both slowly looking around. The night around them was still and silent but Sophie couldn’t stop imagining that the mountain lion was out there, _just_ beyond her vision, waiting and watching…

After an extremely long pause, the Winter Soldier straightened up from his offensive, half-crouched pose and said, “It’s probably moved on—”

Suddenly there was a horrible, drawn-out shrieking, snarling cry and an enormous mountain lion leaped out of the darkness straight at them. The Winter Soldier shoved Sophie out of the way so hard that she flew ten feet back and hit the ground hard. Her head swam for a moment but she struggled to her feet, wildly looking around to see what was happening—and was happening was _terrifying_. The mountain lion and the Winter Soldier rolled around, wrestling. The lion was snarling and batting at the Winter Soldier with razor sharp claws, mouth snapping open and shut, trying to go for his throat, and the Winter Soldier had his metal hand fisted around the lion’s throat, face screwed up in concentration and pain, trying to gain the upper hand.

“What do I do, what do I do, what do I do—” Sophie kept whimpering as she wildly looked around, clutching her head. She needed to get away, she needed to run, she needed to—

No, a weapon, she needed a _weapon_ , but what—

She lurched backward in fear as they rolled toward her and she felt her heel press on something flat and hard. _OF COURSE._ She could have killed herself for how stupid she was. She had blades hidden in both of her Converse! She ripped her right shoe off and yanked the dagger out, backing away from the fight, mouth dry and heart pounding. The lion was letting out horrible snarls and screams and she was terrified that it would call its pack (if it had one) to him or her before long.

She darted forward with her blade but chickened out as they rolled toward her, the Winter Soldier desperately trying to stab the lion with his dagger, and leaped backward, letting out a shriek. “Just—get his throat!” she shouted uselessly. “He—” _Come on, Sophie, come on, COME ON—_

And suddenly the mountain lion raised an enormous paw and slashed at the Winter Soldier’s chest. She heard the sound of clothes tearing. She heard him cry out in pain and shock. And then his head dropped and he was still. Her blood turned to ash and her legs felt like jelly. Had he _died_? No—his arms were still moving—he was still fighting back but the lion must have really hurt him for his reflexes to slow this much—

The lion reached up and opened its jaws to show a row of glistening, gleaming canines dripping with saliva—

_IT’S GOING TO RIP HIS THROAT OUT!_

“NO!” she screamed, throwing herself forward. Normally Sophie would have been no match for a mountain lion but she had the advantage of the lion not even noticing her presence in its fervor to rip the Winter Soldier’s throat out. So she managed to slam her dagger down into its back. It let out a snarling cry and seemed to pause just for one moment, a rumbling sound coming out of its mouth—

But that was all he needed. He slammed his blade up into the lion’s throat viciously. The animal let out a choked, gurgled shriek, and then the Winter Soldier yanked it out and stabbed it in again, dragging it across the animal’s neck and slitting it. Sophie yanked her dagger out of the lion’s furry back and stabbed it in again for good measure, sweating and shaking, hands trembling so hard she could barely grip the dagger. She tried to pull it out a second time but the animal let out a keening, wailing sound and slipped off of the Winter Soldier, collapsing near them, making snuffing and gurgling sounds that almost made Sophie pity it.

“End it,” she whispered, shaking violently. “Do it.”

So he did. He slammed his blade into the lion’s neck one last time and began sawing in so deep that he almost half cut the thing’s head off. Blood leaked all over his fingers, both metal and flesh, and she saw him grit his teeth in—in anger? Or in pain? He kept sawing even though the animal was long dead and Sophie felt sick when she saw the pale pink flesh in the faintest glow of sunrise.

“Stop,” she said.

He kept cutting viciously.

“Stop!” she said.

He stabbed the blade in again and again and again, red blood spraying against his hands, his arms, his face—blood drops dotted his face and his hands were slick with dark red blood—

“Winter!” she said, dropping to her knees next to him and grabbing his arm. “Winter, STOP! It’s dead! You’re acting psychotic!” He didn’t stop and she shook his arm, pleading with him. “Winter! It’s dead! _It’s dead_!” she suddenly screamed and his eyes widened as if he had _just_ realized Sophie was still here. He stopped stabbing and sawing at the lion’s throat and let go of the blade, letting it fall to the ground. He slowly looked at her, looking almost dazed. Sophie gasped when she saw his chest. The lion had slashed clean through his heavy combat clothes and left four very deep bloody gashes across his entire chest. The entire front of his vest was slick with blood, though she didn’t know if it was his blood or the lion’s—probably a mix of both.

He slowly looked down, following her gaze, and she saw one of his eyebrows raise, his mouth drooping down flatly. He didn’t even look surprised to see the deep wounds. But then he fell backwards slightly and then lay down completely. Sophie knelt anxiously over him. Was he dying? His eyes were closed, his forehead beaded with sweat, and his skin looked extremely pale.

“Hey—you need to clean these cuts up,” she said, shaking him. “Stay awake. We need to—” She looked up and helplessly looked around for some help. What was she going to do? She wasn’t a doctor, she didn’t know how to stitch people up. And she knew she needed water to clean his wounds out but where was she going to get that? The stream had long since ended and going back wasn’t an option—was it?

_Come on, Sophie. Don’t wuss out now. You need him to survive._

Did she need him for _her_ to survive?

Or did she just need him to survive?

Not wanting to dwell on questions that made her head hurt, she took a deep breath and then forcefully said, “Take off your shirt.”

He mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like an expletive. It was one of the most human expressions she’d ever heard him use. Clearly he was in no shape—or mood, judging by his closed eyes and ugly scowl—to be doing this himself. Well, she wasn’t going to just let him lay around and die or sulk or whatever he planned on doing. She began unbuckling his vest. She expected him to stop her but surprisingly, he didn’t. There was a zip that ran from top to bottom and she unzipped it. That part was easy. Getting the entire vest-jacket thing off of him was harder. She had to roll him on his side to tug it off of his human arm and he was heavy, so rolling him wasn’t easy—plus he let out a snarl of pain when she touched him, which made her jumpy.

Finally, after fifteen minutes of shoving and nudging and yanking and mentally swearing like a sailor, she got his top off. Wiping the sweat off of her brow, she tossed it aside and wondered what to do next. Having water to clean and knowing how to stitch wounds would be the most ideal—but she had neither of those things. So she would settle for next best. She grabbed the tight long-sleeved shirt he’d stolen for her in Cuba and decided it would work. Then she grabbed the cargo pants and used them to slowly wipe away the excess blood on his chest. She tried not to notice how built he was—it was almost terrifying to see how muscular he was because it kept reminding her of how physically powerful he was. How violent. He could probably crush her throat easily with _either_ metal hand or human hand. It wasn’t fair. He had all the advantages on his side—physical strength, weapon expertise…

 _Except he’s injured now_ , she reminded herself. _Focus on the task. He can’t die from these injuries because then you’re really screwed_.

She wiped the slashes clean as much as she could. When she was done, they looked like four bright-red gashes on his chest and they still looked gross—but at least all the blood on his chest was gone. Then she took her tight shirt and began strategically wrapping it around him so that most of her shirt covered his front. She pulled it as tight as she could against his wounds and then she grunted, “Roll over, would you?” She didn’t even have the energy to try on her own. He complied and she pulled both sleeves around and knotted them tightly against his back. He rolled back over and she leaned back on her haunches, sweaty and satisfied. Voila—there they had it. She’d made a makeshift bandage from her own extra shirt. She felt pretty damn cool right now, if she had to be honest.

_What now?_

“We keep moving,” she decided.

One of his eyes slitted open and he looked at her.

“We need to find water and wash your wounds,” she said. “Even I know that they’ll get infected otherwise.”

He slowly sat up and ground out, “I’m fine,” through gritted teeth. As he struggled to his feet, Sophie saw red blood bloom against her shirt like ink spilling on a silk canvas.

“Uh, the blood on your bandage says otherwise,” she said. “Come on, let’s go before”—she looked around fearfully—“the rest of its friends decide to find him. Do mountain lions have prides?” she asked him.

“How would I know?” he snapped.

She paused. “Well…because…” _Because you always seem like you know everything._ But she couldn’t say that without sounding incredibly weird. So she shrugged and let the topic drop.

She tentatively offered her arm to him, wondering if he needed some help walking, but he rudely shouldered her away, lips flattening and eyes narrowing. He looked incredibly angry and Sophie guessed that it wasn’t often that he found himself wounded like this. Then again, his opponent had probably never been a mountain lion before. Sophie still had to suppress a shiver when she thought about the enormous beast, the way it had pounced with its powerfully-muscled body, the way it had shrieked and snarled…

They walked on.

Dawn slowly rose in the sky as they walked, the sky turning lighter and lighter, the air slightly chilly and misty. Sophie heard the screech of some bird high overhead but when she looked up, she couldn’t see it. The same clouds from yesterday still blanketed the sky, covering the sun and giving the day a gloomy, overcast feeling even as the temperature heated up. The air felt humid and heavy and wet, as if the skies were threatening to burst and bring down rainstorm upon them at any moment. She could feel a storm coming at some point and hoped they’d be able to find some shelter before then. The trees had long vanished and now there were just plains in the valley all around them.

He lagged behind her. Whenever she turned and looked, she saw that he had one arm pressed to his chest, as if trying to hold his blood in. His expression was stony but she saw that he winced every now and then. She didn’t blame him. An open wound was bound to hurt. They had to find a way to close them…but how? He didn’t put his vest top thing back on and walked shirtless with Sophie’s shirt tied to the front of his chest like the world’s weirdest bandage. She peeked back at him a few times and was alarmed to see that his skin looked pale, the shadows under his eyes were darker than ever, and the red stains on her shirt seemed to be spreading further and further…

They marched on through the valley and Sophie wondered if it would ever end. Were they stuck in some sort of hallucination? Some sort of dream? Was this valley never-ending? Was she destined to die here? All she could see were mountains and she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a single person. Where were all the humans of Peru? Surely there had to be _someone_ who lived in the mountains? What desolate world had the plane dropped them in?

The sky peeked through the clouds at times but remained mostly hidden. The day got hotter and Sophie’s hair stuck to the back of her neck. She wished she had a hair elastic to tie it up in a pony and sighed, remembering small luxuries like hair elastics and proper food and a soft bed…

Around midday they stumbled across a small pond that began to widen into a stream and then…her heart lifted when she saw that it seemed to widen into a small river up ahead. “ _Finally_!” Sophie cried in relief, throwing her hands out and dropping to her knees. She used her hands to noisily slurp up as much water as possible, not even caring that she was making a huge fool out of herself. After she was done, she splashed water on her face and then turned to him, using the hem of her t-shirt to pat her face dry. “Alright,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Take your bandage off.”

           


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: In honor of Civil War coming out, here's the latest chapter! Let me know what you think in the review section!

Winter stared at her as if he didn’t understand what she meant.

“Take off your bandage,” she repeated slowly, pointing to her blood-stained shirt wrapped around his chest. “You know, my shirt? You need to clean your wounds.”

He stared at her, brows furrowing as if he still didn’t understand what she was saying—or perhaps he didn’t understand why _she_ was saying it—but then he tersely said, “I know that,” and yanked at the shirt, intending to tear it off.

“Whoa, stop!” she cried, instinctively grabbing his arm. His eyes widened and she quickly wrenched her hand away before he ripped it off. “I mean—” She took a deep breath. “Don’t rip it—it’s the only good bandage we have right now.”

His eyes were cold as they swept over her face (taking in everything, she was sure; her expression, her tone, her breathing, her everything) but he stopped yanking at the shirt and reached both arms behind him, fumbling with the knot she had made. She saw him wince slightly and saw fresh red blood bloom against the bandage.

“Let me do it,” she said.

He looked at her.

“You’re only hurting yourself by stretching behind you,” she pointed out. “I made the knot, I can undo it.”

“Fine,” he grunted. “Do it.”

Thankful that he hadn’t put up a huge fight, she pushed her sweaty hair back from her face and knelt behind him, nimble fingers deftly untying the knot she’d made. She’d _thought_ she’d made it loose but it took a good two minutes to untie the sleeves of the shirt, biting her lip and concentrating and cursing herself for making the knot so _tight_. Had she really made it this tight? Had he been walking around in a pseudo-corset this whole time? _Then again, he’s pretty…broad-chested. And the shirt’s small and stretchy. It was bound to be a tight knot._ Once she’d undone it, she noticed that there were angry red marks where the sleeves had pressed tightly against his back throughout the day. She bit her lip. _Oops…_

He peeled the shirt away from his chest and tossed it aside. Then they both looked at his slashes. Sophie had to fight very hard not to wrinkle her nose in disgust. The cuts weren’t so deep that he was going to die—but they were deep enough to be bright red and still have fresh blood trickle out of them, even though the edges of his slashed skin had congealed, mushy blood on them. Rust-colored stains had dried in smears all over his chest, due to the blood being smeared around from the bandage.

“Well, at least the bleeding stayed contained,” she murmured to herself, missing the sharp look that the Winter Soldier gave her. She looked at him and rubbed the back of her neck. “So…do you want to wash your cuts? Or…I guess I could do it, if it hurts too much…” She didn’t even really understand why she kept offering to help him—except that she didn’t want him to die. She had the sense that his death would result in even more dire consequences for her. And, despite all that he had done to her, Sophie remained a bleeding heart deep inside. She couldn’t stand seeing people hurt and she didn’t like hurting people. She was the kind of person who shed a tear or two over a butterfly with a broken wing. She hadn’t had much opportunity to help out actual _people_ in her life, seeing as how she’d been the most anti-social person she knew (or, rather, _didn’t_ know…), but it appeared that she had a nurturing instinct.

Either that or she was seriously over thinking this and _really_ just wanted him to survive in case he had to fight off another mountain lion for her. Because she sure as hell wasn’t going to fight one.

He was silent for a moment, looking down at his gashes with an almost-clinical expression, and then he looked up at her and said something in a low voice. She had no idea what he said and said, “What?” in puzzlement. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I _said_ , you clean and sew them up,” he said in an only _slightly_ less low voice. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said that he was _embarrassed_ at having to ask her for help in stitching himself up—

Then what he said hit her.

Her eyes widened and she instinctively leaned away from him. “Excuse me?” she asked uneasily. “Sew you up? What are you talking about? We don’t have— How am I supposed to sew you up?”

“I have supplies,” he said.

_So nice of you to volunteer that information earlier._

“I’m not a doctor,” she said, feeling panicky. Was the day getting hotter or was it just her? The back of her neck suddenly felt very warm and sweaty. “I don’t know how to— I’ve never stuck a needle in anyone! I don’t even know how to stitch with _cloth_ , you want me to—with your— _skin_?” She gagged internally. The thought of stabbing a needle through flaps of _skin_ —with blood everywhere—sewing through _skin_ —

“I’m going to be sick,” she mumbled, turning away and trying not to dry heave.

“Get over it,” he snapped. “I don’t have time for this shit.”

Sophie’s jaw dropped and she stared at him incredulously. “You don’t— _you_ don’t have _time_ for this _shit_?” she gasped. “ _You_ don’t have time? If you didn’t have time for this shit, THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE KIDNAPPED ME! Ever thought about that, huh, master ninja? You started this! You kidnapped me! So if _you_ don’t have time for this shit, how do you think I feel?” She was shouting now, her hands clenched in fists. She didn’t even know what she was trying to achieve—he’d long proven that he had no capacity to understand her emotionally in any way, nor did he seem to want to—and she certainly couldn’t attack him—though perhaps in his weakened state… She angrily shook her head, brushing away furious tears before they leaked onto her cheeks and betrayed her. “So _make_ time for this shit!” she said, her voice trembling with anger. “Because I am doing the _best_ I can for someone who didn’t sign up for this SHIT!”

A heavy, awkward silence hung between them after her outburst. To her surprise, he didn’t hit her or even say anything nasty. He merely stared at her and she took a deep, shuddering breath, holding her hair up from her neck and fanning it, trying to calm down. Surprisingly, she felt a little calmer at the prospect of having to stitch him up after that little fit. The thought of stabbing a needle into him even seemed kind of nice now.

“Fine,” he said somewhat sarcastically. “Take your time coming to terms with it. I’ll just wait here. Bleeding.”

Sophie glared at him. “Don’t try to turn this on me. Every word I said was true.”

He shrugged slightly, his gaze insolent and apathetic. She bit down another wave of rage and took a deep breath. _Don’t keep feeding into it. There’s something not right with him._ She still wasn’t entirely sure if this was true…but it made her feel slightly better, thinking it. She felt she had better control of her temper when she suspected there was something wrong with him—because that way she could _sort of_ convince herself that perhaps this wasn’t…one hundred percent his fault or doing. Just _perhaps_.

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

She was wearing a t-shirt so she didn’t have any sleeves to roll up but she took a moment to metaphorically roll up her sleeves and take a deep breath before beckoning Winter closer to the water. He obliged and they both sat on the grassy bank of the pond. Sophie’s mind suddenly went blank as she stared at his gashes. What was she supposed to do now? She only began to move after noticing he was giving her a _Well?_ sort of look. She scooped up a handful of water and sort of slapped her hand on his chest, letting the water trickle down as she wiped downward.

It was a mess. It felt like she was a five-year-old kid finger-painting on his bare chest with his blood and sweat and some water. It felt disgusting, it felt awkward, and it definitely didn’t feel like she had cleaned anything off. He was giving her an incredulous look, as if he couldn’t believe the depths her stupidity had reached. She blushed a furious pink, gave herself a mental slap upside the head, and hurriedly rinsed her hand off in the pond. Then she grabbed her jacket, balled it up so she had a small corner bunched up in her hand, soaked it in the water, and began to dab at his cuts. She worked gingerly, using copious amounts of water to the point where his entire legs seem to be soaked—but he didn’t say anything. He kept his eyes closed as she worked. She wiped away the dried blood all around his cuts and then got to work on the gashes themselves, gently wiping up crusty, dried bits of blood that could get clogged up and cause infections. He winced ever so slightly once or twice when she accidentally jabbed the jacket into the raw muscle underneath and she whispered, “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” each time, wincing herself.

Once she was done, the gashes looked much better. They still looked deep and glistened a gross shade of red but fresh blood was leaking out less and less and at least the rest of his skin wasn’t covered in dried blood. He smelled like blood, though—and sweat and dirt. The strange thing was, he didn’t smell _gross_ , like a guy who hadn’t washed in days normally would—he just smelled sort of acidic and chemical. It made Sophie pause for a moment, wondering if he actually _was_ a robot on the inside—if his insides were made of metal just like his left arm—but then she told herself that her imagination was running away again and she came back to reality.

Still. It would explain a lot, if he was a robot.

Reading so much sci-fi clearly hadn’t been a good idea.

The stitching kit (or whatever it was called) was in an inside pocket of his vest. He directed her to it and she pulled it out, staring down at it. It was a very thin clear plastic bag with a small, sharp-looking needle, gray thread or wire (or whatever material they used to stitch people up), some little white packets, some pressed cotton balls, a short and flat gray plastic blade-looking thing…

She opened it up and stared helplessly down at the bag. “What do I…?”

He looked like he was barely suppressing an eye roll with extreme effort. “Alcohol swab first,” he said in a low voice. “To clean the edges off. And your hands.”

“R-Right. Of course,” she said in a shaky voice. She was so nervous that she was forgetting _basic hygiene_. She ripped open one of the alcohol swabs and cleaned off her fingers and hands. Then she opened another and carefully ran it along the edges of his gashes. She saw the muscles in his arms and chest tighten and go rigid but if he felt any sting or pain, he didn’t say so or make any outward display at all. Then she used another alcohol swab to clean the needle off, glad she’d thought to do it without him telling her. She had been beginning to wonder if her head had been stuffed with wool instead of brains.

As it turned out, stitching a person up was _not_ like sewing cloth. One continuous thread was not used to close a whole gash. Each gash required close to ten tiny pieces of thread. She had to loop it around the end of the needle, pierce his skin, pull it under the other bit of skin across the gash (while trying to control her stomach and not vomit all over him), pull it from under to the top, slip the needle off the thread while holding onto both ends and then tying them together as tightly as she could. Her fingers got slick with her sweat, and his sweat and blood, and she fumbled: slipping, losing grip on the needle, accidentally letting go of one of the ends of the thread, accidentally letting the knot go and having to start over…

It was slow, awkward, back-aching work and at first she had to fight down the urge to panic and freak out completely because of what she was doing and how close she was to him and how badly she was doing…but he sat as still as a rock and didn’t say anything and slowly she became engrossed in her work. If she held her breath and ignored the salty, coppery smell of the blood and sweat, she could almost pretend like she was doing some sort of arts and crafts. It was definitely not as fun as cooking or drawing or reading a book but it was a _task_ and it took her mind off of things for a while, because she had to focus one hundred percent on her fingers, squinting down at the needle.

She was so lost in her work that she didn’t realize she was practically kneeling in his lap by the time she was done and he was sitting so rigidly that he might have been made of stone. She finished up the last stitch and sat back, wiping the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead, allowing herself a self-satisfied smile. “Done,” she said proudly. “I did—” Then she noticed how stiffly he was sitting, how his eyes stared past her, over her head, deliberately not seeing her.

She was bewildered. What would make him act this way? He was the one who’d told her to stitch him up. Was it how close she’d been to him? Had he been _uncomfortable_? Why on Earth should he be uncomfortable? She’d been doing clinical, soulless work and hadn’t even tried to speak to him, so focused had she been on the task. It couldn’t have been more emotionless had she tried.

She suddenly wondered if he’d ever been close to a human before?

She decided to test out her theory. It could be dangerous but…she had to know. She slowly inched closer to him and very quietly said, “I just want to—make sure—my work is okay. Is that…okay?”

He didn’t speak for a moment and then— “Whatever you want.” The words came out in a hiss through a tightly-clenched jaw. He seemed incredibly tense, as if he might explode the moment she touched him. She definitely hoped he wouldn’t.

Slowly, she reached out a hand to him, noticing the way his eyes widened and how rigid his body was—and then she very gently placed a hand on his chest. She didn’t even touch one of the stitched up gashes. She just kept it there against his very warm chest (wondering vaguely if he had a fever; why did his skin feel so hot?). He was so tense under his skin that it almost felt like he was…trembling.

She suddenly realized that he looked… _afraid_.

He had the look of a very scared, cornered wild animal that didn’t know what to do or where to turn. She had to be careful with her next move. He could either remain frozen—or rip her head off. There was no telling when it came to wild animals.

Or terrified children—because that was also what he looked like. His eyes looked strangely innocent, blank of any grown-up anger or aggression. He looked like… Sophie’s stomach flipped. He had the expression she’d seen on children in TV slots about child abuse. Half-defiant, half-frightened, as still as a rabbit caught in the cross-hairs of a fox… _Except he’s the fox_ and _the rabbit_ , she had to remind herself. _He’s the danger as well. Don’t forget that, Sophie._

She slowly moved her hand down, very gently, almost as if she was stroking him, and a shudder ran through his body at her touch. He seemed incapable of moving or even speaking. He could only stare at with those wide, frozen eyes and she began to feel frightened. What was wrong with him? Why would he react this way to her touch?

Had he…

_Has he never been touched gently by someone before?_

The thought horrified her. She pulled her hand away before it became unbearable for him and he went crazy, and he seemed to visibly relax in front of her, almost crumpling. She _knew_ it wasn’t just her imagination that made her see his shoulders slump slightly.

“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s fine.” She turned away, pretending to busy herself with folding her spare clothes, trying to hide the shock she could feel all over her face. Whatever she had expected with him, it hadn’t been _this_. She’d gotten the feeling early on that there was something different about him—something that didn’t seem to click—but she had never expected to find…this.

And what was this? She didn’t even know. She couldn’t define it. However, she knew that she felt wrong inside. She felt shocked and afraid and… She bit her lip. Sorrow. She felt _sorrow_ inside, nagging at her, telling her that there was more to him than she had assumed and that perhaps she wasn’t the only one deserving of sympathy around here.

She thought he’d immediately keep moving but he sat there at the edge of the lake, staring off into space for a while, his expression a bit dazed, so she let him have his time. Perhaps he was resting. She wouldn’t blame him if he was. He was strong and tough, yes, but he’d also gotten clawed by a mountain lion and stitched up by someone who was definitely not a professional. She hoped her stitches would hold.

She, on the other hand, methodically folded and unfolded her other clothes, while thinking hard. What did she really know about him? He called himself the Winter Soldier but that wasn’t a name, just a title. He didn’t seem to want her to know his name…or he didn’t _have_ a name. The thought was unnerving but it did fit in with the mental image she was building of his entire person. He was tough, brutal, rough, scary, and he’d lost his temper a few times—but he’d never seemed to show any pleasure in his cruelty. He seemed solely focused on finishing the mission with maniacal stubbornness. He was kidnapping her for some sort of group named Hydra. She’d never heard of them before but then again, Sophie had lived a very sheltered life. For all she knew they were a very well-known crime group and she’d just never noticed. After all, she’d increasingly spent the last few years of her life with her head trapped in a book. He referred to himself as Hydra’s _asset_ , a strangely dehumanizing term. He hadn’t called or reported to anyone even once—that she’d seen anyway—and this meant he was very independent. She could believe that. After all, he’d just killed a mountain lion. Speaking of killing a mountain lion…he’d done things no human man was capable of, such as kicking a hole in an airplane wall and leaping from extreme distances. He was clearly more than human—he was some sort of super human. His arm was metal and his empty eyes, his blank expression, his lack of self…she might have actually started guessing that he was some sort of high-functioning, extremely-advanced robot, complete mechanics on the inside, made to look like a human.

She _might_ have believed that…had she not just seen his reaction to her touch.

No robot would have reacted that way. No machine could have shown that kind of fear, trepidation, anxiety, shock. He was human alright but he was more than human and less than human all at once. It was incredibly confusing. 

She didn’t want to feel this way about him. She didn’t want to start thinking about him in sympathetic terms. She didn’t want to start trying to figure his story out. She wanted him to remain the monster in _her_ story. She wanted to keep hating him. It was easier that way, to hold him at a distance, to look away from his cold gaze, to allow her hate to bloom like a poisonous flower inside her chest. But the thing was…that wasn’t who Sophie was. She’d always been a nice person. She didn’t like hurting people in any way. She didn’t like being unfair. She didn’t like letting people down even if she always felt like she did.

And her sense of fairness—and curiosity, because she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious about his story—wouldn’t allow her to keep hating him without fairly examining the situation. And the situation was this: he was a dangerous man who’d done dangerous things…but a part him—perhaps all of him—was clearly being controlled by other people.

She didn’t know what had been done to him. Perhaps he’d been tortured. Perhaps he’d been brainwashed. Perhaps he’d been kidnapped as a child and now had Stockholm Syndrome. Perhaps he’d had a lobotomy. But there was a part of him that had been taken away. He didn’t seem to recognize himself as a person. He didn’t prioritize any of his needs—if he even _had_ personal needs. He didn’t look like he was used to a gentle, normal human touch.

All of this bothered Sophie. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with this information. _He_ didn’t seem like he’d changed, even though she had. He was still planning on delivering her to people who probably wanted to use her skills for very bad purposes. He wasn’t planning on letting her go anytime soon. Her sympathy wasn’t very well-served…and yet it still existed.

She wondered if she could somehow…get closer to him. Find the human part of him, no matter how deep down it was buried, and appeal to it to let her go. To do the right thing.

They moved on.

The pond widened into a river and she wondered where it ended, where all the water went. If both sides had a definite end, then the water was stagnant. There had to be some sort of drop-off from somewhere. _Unless_ …her eyes raised to the snow-capped mountains that surrounded them on either side. Unless the water was fresh runoff from the mountains during the colder seasons. Did it snow in Peru? She thought it might.

How many days had they been here? She tried to count backwards and found that the days were blurring in her mind. It had to have been only a few…and yet she couldn’t really remember. She thought this might be the fourth day—unless it was the third. Or was it the fifth? She thought she’d been gone just around two weeks now but she really couldn’t remember. She’d stopped keeping track of the days a while ago. But she’d definitely been gone for a decent amount of time…people _had_ to know she was missing by now. If the police had been in her apartment, they would have seen the signs of a slight struggle. Her dad was a rich man and she wondered if her name and face was plastered across newspapers and news headlines across the country—perhaps across the world? She was young, she was pretty, she was white, and she was the daughter of wealthy people. She was the only kind of person that the media cared about, unfortunately for other missing people.

Around evening, something changed. The valley began to widen and the mountains began to spread further apart. They reached the top of a hill and when they looked down, Sophie gasped. She could see the valley spreading further and further below them, reaching out wide like a spilled glass of something, pushing the mountains further apart, and she could see what looked like homes! Small, one-room homes—but homes nonetheless!

She turned to see how Winter felt about it but he was staring in a different direction, to their left, where—Sophie squinted—a woman with a mule and a cart was staring at them from a long ways away. She appeared to be heading in the same direction as them, towards the small cluster of homes, the beginning of a town.

“What are we going to do?” Sophie asked. “Run?”

He crossed his arms and then winced slightly. “No. We’re going to wait.”

“For what?” she asked. “Are we waiting for _her_?”

He nodded. Sophie didn’t notice it at the time but he was responding to her questions more and more. She was too preoccupied with the worry that perhaps he was going to kill this woman. She didn’t really see why he would do that but who was she to know how his mind worked? “What are we going to do to her?” she asked. He didn’t answer, his gaze locked thoughtfully on the woman, who was headed towards them. “Winter!” She tugged at his arm and he looked down at her, looking almost surprised at her presence. “What are we going to do to her?” she asked urgently, wondering if she could warn the woman away in time.

“ _To_ her?” he asked. “Nothing.”

“Then…why are we waiting for her?” she asked.

“Do you speak Spanish?” he asked.

Sophie was thrown for a moment. “What?” she asked blankly. “Spanish? Uh…not really, I took it in high school but I can only say a few things…”

“Like what?” he asked a touch impatiently.

“ _Hola, me llamo Sophie_ ,” she said. “ _Me gusta pantalones y helado._ Um… ¿ _Como eres tu_?”

“What does that mean?” he asked. He seemed irritated that she knew something he didn’t. He needn’t have worried, she personally thought. Her Spanish was dreadful. She had no real advantage over him.

“Um… ‘Hi, my name is Sophie. I like pants and ice cream. How are you?’” She blushed slightly after she realized how stupid she sounded. It wasn’t her fault that she could only remember the most random phrases. Language wasn’t taught very well in American schools. Her Spanish classes had consisted of memorizing list after list of irrelevant vocabulary without learning how to structure conversation properly.

He stared at her and she felt her blush deepen. Before he had time to make a scathing remark, the woman had reached them. She looked middle-aged and had a lined, weary-looking face but dark eyes that seemed to sparkle, even from this distance. Her skin was tanned, the ridge of her nose very flat, her eyes almond-shaped. She had dark hair twisted into a thick braid that hung over one shoulder. A tan-colored hand was jauntily perched on her head, looking a curious mix between sombrero and cowboy hat in Sophie’s opinion. She wore a black dress with a geometric orange print patterned around the skirt and a bright red cape-like thing tied around her neck and thrown over her shoulders, designs of white and brown and deeper red decorating it. Rough brown sandals covered her feet. Her wooden cart was piled high with a purplish-looking vegetable that looked sort of like a radish…but not quite.

She said something to them. If she was speaking Spanish, it was clearly a form of Spanish Sophie had never heard before; either that or she was speaking a different dialect altogether. They both stared blankly at the woman and then suddenly Winter spoke. “Brazil?” he asked, holding his hands up as if to show he was confused. Sophie felt a bit startled. She’d never heard him speak _normally_ to another human, she realized—and she’d never heard him speak to a woman point-blank. Somehow it made him seem…gentler.

 _You’re insane, Sophie_ , she told herself. _You’re getting carried away. This isn’t a novel._

“Brazil?” the woman asked quickly, making it sound like _brathel_ to Sophie.

“ _Sí_ ,” Sophie said, hoping the woman truly was speaking Spanish. She nodded to make her meaning even clearer. “Um… _Donde_ … _eres_ …I mean… ¿ _Donde está Brazil_?” She winced, wondering if she’d phrased it properly.

The woman seemed to be biting back a smile but she said, “¿ _Americano_?” with a knowing look.

Sophie froze. If she said she was American, there was a _slight_ chance that she would be recognized as the missing American girl, if these people somehow knew about it. However…admitting to being an American abroad was also asking for trouble sometimes. She’d read this in travel guides. People saw Americans as either nuisances or good people to con. She glanced up at Winter, wondering what he was going to do. His face was tight when he tersely said, “No. No _Americano_.”

The woman looked a bit bewildered then but she motioned for them to follow her. Sophie didn’t understand what was going on but when she looked up at Winter, he shrugged slightly, as if to say that he didn’t even really care at this point. Sophie wondered how far he would go to finish this mission. Even _he_ had to have his limits, right? Perhaps she could just dawdle and draw it out to the point where he gave up. “Let’s go with her,” she said. “Maybe she can point us on our way to Brazil.”

He didn’t even seem to question why Sophie would want to go where he desired to take her. He nodded once and they followed the woman, who looked back at them from time to time with a curious, wary expression. She asked them a few questions but Winter remained stoically silent and Sophie helplessly shrugged, an apologetic expression on her face, so the woman gave up.

She led them to a small path worn from the wheels of carts, a long line of scraggly crass in between the wheel tracks, and they began heading down the steep heel toward the valley and plains below. Sophie had the sense that they were descending down and out of the mountains completely. She could still see the dark, shadowy silhouettes of mountains in the distance but the narrow valley they’d been walking through seemed to have finished. No more isolation. She couldn’t help but feel extremely relieved. It had been very weird, to only have Winter’s face to look at (or not look at as the case sometimes was).

Sophie had misjudged how far the little homes were. They’d seemed so close from the top of the hill but as they descended, they seemed to get further and further away. Her brow furrowed. _That’s not right, is it_? They made their way down the hill, leaving the dense mountain chain behind them. The skies were a pale gray and looked like they might bring rain down upon them anytime soon but Sophie knew better by now. These skies usually looked like that and it hadn’t rained once yet.

The woman led the way in front, Sophie trailing a few feet behind her, and Winter quite a ways behind both of them. Sophie was a little surprised that he stayed so far behind—what if she somehow signaled to the woman that she had been kidnapped by him?—but he probably figured the language barrier was enough to keep him safe. He was right. Sophie had no idea how she could have gone about exposing him short of pointing at him and yelling, “BAD! NO!”

The woman’s name was Ihuicatl, Sophie was pretty sure. She had looked back at Sophie and said the word a few times, tapping her chest and nodding. Sophie had tapped her own chest and said her own name and the woman had repeated, “ _So-fee_ ,” and broken into a gap-toothed smile. She was beautiful and Sophie’s heart ached. She wished she could have met this woman in better circumstances. She wished she’d been braver and traveled more and met more people. How many lovely people and places had she missed out on by being so worried about everything?

It took them a good hour and a half but Ihuicatl eventually led them right to the small cluster of dwellings. The land was uneven and looked like large stepping stone platforms of grass, making the land look scaly and patchy. Small red houses with angled roofs stood clustered together. A dusty, well-worn road traveled through the middle of the town as a main street of sorts. Women sat in the grass by the side, blankets in their hands, and stood by doorways, hanging out laundry and sheets. Sophie didn’t really see any men as they made their way through the small town. A gaggle of children ran up to them, their feet dusty, shiny dark hair cropped close to their shoulders, small braids thrown  behind them, golden ball studs glinting at some of their ears—those must be the girls. They were curious and excited, some of them hanging back, shy, others coming closer, more daring. Sophie imagined that she and Winter must look a bit strange, pale-skinned and dirty-looking. She suddenly jolted around, wondering if Winter was still shirtless except for her shirt tied around him—but no, thank God, he’d put his dark vest jacket thing back on and zipped it back up despite the slashes in it. She hadn’t wanted to lead him through the village like some kind of Tarzan, especially with his long dark hair.

She studied him to see how he would act around children. This was the _true_ test to see what kind of person he was. He stared resolutely ahead, his body stiff, ignoring the children that danced around him and followed him. If Sophie wasn’t mistaken, he looked a bit uncomfortable as well, as if he didn’t know how to handle these little people who were clearly unafraid of him.

 _Well, they wouldn’t be_ , she thought, turning away. _He hasn’t attacked them yet._ Then she felt bad for thinking that. Yes, he’d attacked her, but she was beginning to think more and more than he wasn’t completely in control of himself.

She was just too damn nice sometimes.

Ihuicatl shooed the children away and they scattered like a flock of birds but Sophie could see them trailing further behind, mischievous twinkles in their dark eyes. She immediately felt fond of them and couldn’t resist peeking behind her and waving her fingers at them. She felt Winter’s eyes on her but ignored him. Surrounded by all these other people, she felt infinitely braver. She knew he could still hurt her but a part of her had a hard time believing he would, especially with so many children as witnesses.

Ihuicatl led them to a small house with a pale pink door set into a tiny alley on the side. She parked her cart in front of the alley and ushered them through the door. They stepped into what looked like a one-bedroom house. A bed with a colorful woven blanket, a small table, colorful shawls hung strategically as curtains, painted ceramic bowls and vases adorning the tables, dried and pressed flowers and leaves tacked to the walls, and a stack of old-looking books in one corner, spines faded and peeling and worn. They looked loved. Sophie itched to go and take a look at the stack but she didn’t know if that would be rude so she controlled her book nerd impulses.

Ihuicatl ushered for them to sit down. Sophie’s legs were aching but Winter sat down at the edge of the bed and there was no way she was going to _choose_ to sit next to him. She sat down at the table. Ihuicatl said something to them that they didn’t understand but she looked so hopeful that Sophie nodded. Ihuicatl nodded as well, held up a hand with all five fingers up, and then vanished, closing the door behind her.

“What did she say?” Sophie asked blankly. Of course Winter remained silent. “I think she said she’ll be back in five minutes,” Sophie answered her own self.

_I’m talking to myself now. Out loud. Dial down the crazy, Soph._

She examined her nails. They were all chipped and had dirt under them. Normally she kept them neatly trimmed and buffed. She let out a short, humorless laugh. _My luxury days are behind me_. She had no idea what was coming next but she wasn’t stupid enough to believe that escape was anywhere near possible right now. Yes, she was surrounded by other people now—but they’d also gotten back on track with Winter’s mission. He was still going to deliver her to Hydra, wherever Hydra was.

“Is Hydra in Brazil?” she asked, still examining her nails, making her voice casual. “Or is that another stop along the way?” He was silent and she decided to test out her theory again. “I think they’re in Brazil,” she said. “Of course, Brazil could have been another stop along the way—just like Cuba—but that doesn’t make sense, really. If someone was going to pick us up in Brazil, we’re _really_ late for the meeting.” She snickered to herself. “So if we’re still headed towards Brazil, I can only conclude that Brazil is our destination. Unless…unless you know how to fly a plane and Brazil _is_ just another stop along the way? But that can’t be true because if you knew how to fly a plane, you w—”

“They’re in Brazil,” he suddenly snapped. “Now _please_ shut up.”

She smiled to herself, pleased. “Yes, Winter.”

“Stop calling me that.” Her back was turned to him but she could hear almost see the peevish expression on his face.

“Why?” she asked casually. “You either won’t tell me your real name—”

“I told you, I’m the Winter Soldier—”

“—or you don’t know your real name,” she finished quietly.

There was a sudden silence between them and she twisted around in her chair to look at him, locking eyes with him. His face was expressionless as always but he did look a little paler than normal. “Well?” Sophie prompted, her voice even more quiet now. “Do you not want me to know your name—or do you not know your own name?” She knew she was treading on dangerous ground but this would tell her something very important about him.

“I don’t _have_ a name,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Everyone has a name,” she whispered.

“Everyone but me,” he said shortly and then he turned away, laying down on the bed and closing his eyes. The action was so human that Sophie stared at him, startled, for a moment, taking in the paleness of his face, his closed eyelids, the lock of dark hair that fell onto his cheek. Then she turned away, feeling somehow as if she had witnessed something private that she shouldn’t have seen. He’d all but admitted it: he didn’t know his own name. This only confirmed the suspicions Sophie had been having about him.

He’d been wronged—perhaps even more than Sophie had been wronged.

She just wanted to know how.

It occurred to Sophie that now they were in civilized society, she could possibly utilize her skills to help herself. It was clear that Winter didn’t know what her powers were because otherwise he probably would have said something by now. However, looking around, she didn’t see any electronics. No computer, no phone, nothing she could use to possibly help herself. She bit back a sigh just as Ihuicatl entered back into the room.

The rest of the evening passed by in a bit of a sweep. Ihuicatl fed them a bowl of what looked like a dark, mushy stew but actually tasted quite tasty in a smoky sort of way. Then Winter showed her his wounds at Sophie’s urging and Ihuicatl gave him a homemade paste to apply to his angry red wounds. Sophie hoped it had antibiotic and antibacterial properties. She didn’t want him to die from an infection at this point.

While Winter was sitting at the table, messing about with the basin of cold water and the paste that Ihuicatl had given him, Sophie sat on the bed, leaning her back against the wall, and watched. And then, without meaning to, she fell asleep. The bed was soft and lumpy and it smelled like dust and spices and she couldn’t help herself. She slid down the wall and was out for the count as soon as her head hit the bed.

She woke an hour later to Ihuicatl tugging her awake gently. Blinking blearily, she sat up. Winter was nowhere in sight. She opened her mouth to question where he was going but realized that Ihuicatl wouldn’t understand her anyway. Ihuicatl led her to a very large wooden tub sitting behind the table. It was filled with water, steam rising off of the top, and pointed to it. Then she pointed to a garment draped over the back of one of the chairs. Sophie suddenly understood what she meant and threw her arms around the woman, unable to show her gratitude in any other way. Ihuicatl stiffened and Sophie pulled away, afraid she had offended her somehow—perhaps touching wasn’t in their custom?—but Ihuicatl gave her a shy smile and then left the room.

Sophie didn’t know how on Earth Ihuicatl had convinced Winter to give Sophie some privacy or when they’d be back but she didn’t even care right now. She stripped and got into the tub, almost groaning because it had been _so long_ since she’d felt hot water on her skin. She sat, arms wrapped tightly around her knees in case anyone walked in, for a while and then she scrubbed herself clean, ducking her head in to wash her hair as well. When she was done, she used the blanket Ihuicatl had left to dry herself off and then tried on the clothes that Ihuicatl had left her, gladly kicking her old clothes aside. They were too gross and worn by now anyway.

She had a pair of thick brown tights that cut off at the ankles, a bright red dress, and a black sweater with a bright blue print on it. There was also a pair of thick, woolly socks. Everything smelled clean, like water and fresh air. She pulled her Converse on and then finger-combed her wet hair, wandering to a mirror that sat against a mantle in the far corner. She couldn’t help but laugh at how she looked. She looked like a little girl playing dress-up in foreign doll’s clothing. Still, the clothes were clean and warm and soft, so she didn’t care. Let her look odd. At least her clothing fit in in this country.

She didn’t know what to do with the tub so she lugged it to the door and peeked outside, looking up and down the alley. Winter was leaning outside, wearing a dark baggy cardigan-looking thing that covered his metal arm, and she gave a slight jump when she realized he’d been so close this whole time. For some reason she felt like blushing. She gave herself a mental smack and then said, “Help me with this,” motioning to the heavy tub. She’d intended for him to help her carry it out but to her surprise, he picked the entire thing up himself as if it weighed nothing to him and carried it down the alley, dumping the water in the grass in the back. She sighed. Of course it weighed nothing to him. He was a superhuman. She thanked him when he came back and he ignored her.

Night had fallen by now and Ihuicatl eventually came back but there was a man with her now. He had darker tanned skin and was thin and rangy, tall, his face also lined. He looked cautious, more suspicious of the strangers. He took in Winter’s muscular figure and half-stepped in front of Ihuicatl protectively. Sophie didn’t really blame him. Winter could look…well, terrifying. But the man needn’t have worried. Winter didn’t commit that sort of crime; Sophie knew this by now.

“ _Mi marido_ ,” Ihuicatl said, pointing to the man. Sophie didn’t recognize the word—as far as she remembered “husband” was _esposo_ —but she guessed that the man was her husband. He was far too young to be her father and stood in far too familiar a fashion to be her brother.

“You go to Brazil?” the man asked. Sophie felt a rush of relief; he spoke English! Even if it was broken English, it was still English nonetheless!

Winter stepped forward and calmly said, “Yes. Can you point us the direction?”

The man regarded him silently with suspicious eyes. Then he pointed jerkily to Sophie and said, “Your…wife?”

There was a silence. It seemed Winter didn’t know what to say. Sophie hastily stepped forward and said, “Yes…yes, he’s my husband.” She didn’t know why but she had a feeling that these people might have been the traditional type to dislike unmarried men and women traveling together. She didn’t want to do anything to get on this man’s bad side. Pretending to be married to Winter just made their lives easier. Plus, it might help deter any creeper who wanted to put his hands on Sophie. She hadn’t forgotten the disgusting frat boys back in Cuba. One look at Winter and they probably would have fled. It was sad but the reality was, men were much less likely to harass a woman if they thought she belonged to another man—especially a man as scary-looking as the Winter Soldier.

The man visibly relaxed, as if the thought of Winter and Sophie being married reassured him that they were a kind and innocent couple. “I show you,” he offered. “Tomorrow. Tonight…stay. Eat.” He rattled off a set of instructions to Ihuicatl in rapid Spanish and she nodded, walking over to the two small counters that seemed to be their kitchen.

Sophie glanced at Winter. He had an ugly, obstinate expression on his face—a dangerous expression. She quickly grabbed his arm and swung him around before Ihuicatl’s husband saw his terrifying expression; one look at that and they’d both be tossed out immediately. He looked like a man out for blood. “One night,” she said in a low voice. “If you do anything crazy now, they’ll never help you. Are you going to massacre the entire village? Or just hold him at gunpoint and make him show us the way?” She ended on a fierce note, letting her tone tell him just what she would think of such actions. It was probably stupid to hope that he even cared _somewhat_ about what she thought but she could only try.

His jaw tightened and he looked extremely angry—but then he tightly said, “Fine. One night.” His shoulders visibly relaxed a bit. “We’re already late as hell, what’s one more night,” he muttered so low that Sophie wasn’t sure if she was supposed to hear or not. She didn’t care. Elated that she’d won this round, she skipped over to Ihuicatl and watched her prepare dinner, clumsily helping when she could (and probably just creating more work for Ihuicatl, who then had to fix Sophie’s mistakes with a good-natured expression).

Dinner was some type of indistinguishable meat dish and mashed vegetable. All of it was foreign, all of it could have used a little more salt in Sophie’s opinion, but she was no one to turn down hot food at this point, especially when it was meat. They ate in mostly silence, candlelight illuminating their faces, Ihuicatl’s husband watching them with careful, dark eyes. He was a cautious man. When they were done, Sophie suddenly realized that there was only one bed. Ihuicatl seemed to have realized the same thing at the same time and thus began the world’s most awkward, confused argument, both Sophie and Ihuicatl insisting that the other take the bed, both half-laughing because it was clear no one understood a word the other was saying.

“No—please,” Sophie said desperately, feeling near laughter. “It’s _your_ bed—we’ll be fine on the floor—” God knew they’d been sleeping on the ground for the past few days.

Astonishingly, it was Ihuicatl’s husband who settled the manner. “You, bed,” he ordered, pointing. He seemed extremely stubborn and Sophie wondered if it was a matter of honor. She remembered vaguely reading somewhere that hospitality to strangers was very important to South American cultures. She hesitated. Perhaps they’d actually be offended if she and Winter slept on the floor? She didn’t want to offend them. She peeked at Ihuicatl’s husband’s resolute expression and then nodded. “Yes,” she sighed. “Okay. Thank you.”

It was only after she sat down on the bed that she stiffened, realizing Winter would have to sleep next to her. _What’s the big deal_? she asked herself. _You’ve literally cuddled up to him once before. This is way easier_. But it didn’t feel easier. She’d had to sleep pressed up against him for warmth that one night—it had been a necessity. This just felt…different. She gingerly laid herself down onto the bed and faced the wall, scooting so close to it that she was almost hugging the wall. She felt Winter lay down behind her. Her heart was pounding so loudly that she was amazed he couldn’t hear it.

Unless he could hear it. God, how embarrassing that would be.

She only peeked behind her once to see which direction he was facing. Their eyes locked and she quickly looked away, cheeks burning. She couldn’t believe she was playing little spoon to his big spoon, his bent knees pressing into the backs of her knees, so close that she could hear his breathing. At first she was unbearably tense, unable to relax, but the candle eventually burned out and darkness blanketed the room. The world fell into a hush and her natural exhaustion took over and she slid into sleep.

* * *

 

He was having trouble sleeping.

Everything seemed strange. Letting these people help him—that was strange. He’d never needed help on a mission before. And then earlier, when he had let the girl talk him into staying the night here. What had that been? He could have held a gun to the man’s head and forced him to show them the direction to Brazil. And yet…the girl had suggested the very same thing, her tone dripping with disgust and scorn. And for some strange reason, he hadn’t wanted that disgust aimed at him—not today. He was too exhausted. So he’d agreed to stay the night. He’d said yes to her.

And now here he was, unbearably close to her. They’d slept like this once before—closer, in fact—but he’d done it to keep her alive. There was no such need now. He didn’t have to do this. And yet…here he was. He was so close that soft strands of her hair tickled his face and he could see the rise and fall of her chest ever so slightly. She was in deep sleep now. He could feel her body heat. She was probably overheating due to the ridiculous red thing the woman had given the girl.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and then sighed. He needed to sleep if the rest of this mission was to go as planned. So he forced himself to empty his mind. This was something he’d practiced before: clearing out the debris, quieting the screaming and sirens, allowing the sickening spin of thoughts to slow to a stop, forcing himself to submit to the silent darkness in order to rest.

And there he fell asleep, his hand somehow ending up resting on the small of her waist.

 

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Oh boy. Looks like I have some explaining to do. I mean, technically, I don’t have to—but I want to because I feel bad. Basically, this whole year has been pretty bad for me in terms of stress. I suffered with an illness in the spring that really drained my strength. Right after I updated this story the last time (I believe it was the day before Civil War came out), my life basically went up in flames in a bad way. I won’t explain exactly what’s been going on because A) it’s personal, and B) I don’t think you guys care much for the details. But I had to take a mental health break in a major way. I took a break from pretty much all of my social media and even my friends in real life. It’s been a really bad few months and I’m only just now starting to get better. So thank you for being patient! Updates for my other story are definitely on the way, since I’m finally now feeling a little better, and I’m definitely going to try and get back into the groove of updating all my stories pretty regularly. I just wanted to thank you guys for your patience. I love all of you. Hope you enjoy this chapter! Let me know what you think in the reviews.

Sophie woke and was horrified to find that unlike the last time she and Winter had slept close together, he hadn’t vanished before she’d woken—but in fact was _closer_ to her than he had been when they’d gone to bed. His human hand was draped over her waist, one of his legs was hooked over hers, and she thought the top of his head was pressed into her back between her shoulder blades.

She lay there, frozen, hardly daring to breathe. This was incredibly awkward and more than a little frightening. What should she do? Should she just lay here frozen until he woke up? Going back to sleep wasn’t an option. She would never be able to relax now. She wanted to move away from his grip. It was making her extremely uncomfortable. But would he wake if she moved? Would he attack her?

The light in the room was a pale gray with a hint of bright gold peeking in from behind the curtains. Hardly daring to breathe, Sophie began inching closer and closer to the wall until she was almost licking it. The pressure from his head or whatever disappeared—but his hand was still on her waist and his right leg was still resting on hers. Moving as slowly and gingerly as she could, holding her breath, she sat up and inched away from him. His hand fell off her waist but he didn’t move. She wrapped her arms around her legs in the far corner of the bed, studying him. Aside from the time she’d woken up after the plane crash and found him unconscious, she’d never seen him in such a vulnerable state. He was sound asleep, curled up in an almost-fetal position.

 _He must have been more exhausted than I thought_ , she mused. She’d assumed he was like a robot, able to run efficiently for forever, never really needing sleep or food. She’d been wrong and it was just one more thing that convinced her he was a proper human in her eyes. She studied his face carefully. It looked strange when it wasn’t glaring, sneering, scoffing, scowling, or staring at her with dead eyes. His lips were slightly parted and he really could have used a good shave now. His eyelids looked like a pale lavender color in the pale gray-gold of the morning and his dark hair was pushed away from his pale forehead. He looked like a normal guy in his mid- to late twenties. _A cute boy_. She couldn’t help but think that last thought; after all her years reading romance novels, she was a romantic at heart and she couldn’t help but see that he was handsome. If only he had been a normal human being…

But then, of course, Sophie would never have met him. Because Sophie never went out and Sophie always turned down boys and she never approached them on her own.

His eyes suddenly snapped open and she couldn’t help but jerk backwards and let out a gasp, clapping a hand to her mouth. He stared at her and her cheeks flooded with color at being caught staring at him but he didn’t look scary or empty; he looked a little confused, a little bleary…

He looked like a normal person waking up.

She watched him carefully, relishing these moments, because she knew they would go away soon. And sure enough, he slowly sat up, rubbing his eyes and throwing his shoulders back out wide, and when he pulled his hands away from his face, he looked as stoic and steely as ever. She sighed inwardly to herself. The madman was back. Although…if she was going to be _really_ fair…he wasn’t a madman. She had to grudgingly admit this to herself now.

Hydra, on the other hand, did seem to be filled with madmen. What other kind of people could employ someone like the Winter Soldier?

In fact, what other kind of people could _do_ something like this to someone like the Winter Soldier? The way he’d called himself Hydra’s asset, she had a feeling that it was Hydra that had messed him—whoever he had been originally—up beyond belief.

Which didn’t make her feel any better about the fact that he was still delivering her to them. What if they did similar things to her? Would Sophie forget her own name? Would she be turned into an empty-eyed and empty-souled killer? Would _she_ be dragging innocent girls and boys from their homes and forcing them to utilize their talents and money for evil? Or would Hydra bypass all that and simply hold her captive for forever, using her talents to do whatever evil things they wanted?

Ihuicatl and her husband had slept on a thin blanket on the floor, which made Sophie feel extremely guilty. Both of them had gotten up long before Sophie had woken up, though Sophie had woken quite early. Ihuicatl fed them both breakfast—some type of sweet, mushy white porridge that had a nutty flavor with orange fruit slices sprinkled in—and then she was ushering them to the door. Sophie realized with a rush that they were leaving so she abandoned all propriety and gave Ihuicatl a huge hug, tears pricking her eyes at the woman’s kindness. She’d never expected a stranger to be so giving and it broke her heart that she couldn’t thank her properly or ever visit her again. All she could do was babble, “ _Gracias, muchas gracias_ ,” again and again and hope that they got the message.

Ihuicatl’s husband led them down the road to a large wooden wagon piled high with what looked like corn…except the husks were a very pale cream color and had spots of purple and pink stained onto them as if paint had been dripped on them. Two horses were driving the cart and a man with a wide-brimmed hat was perched on a small seat attached to the front of the wagon, driving the horses. Ihuicatl’s husband motioned towards the wagon, gesturing for them to get in. “He take you to bus,” he explained. Sophie nodded gratefully and allowed him to help her into the wagon, since Winter had already nimbly clambered up (a gentleman he clearly was not).

Ihuicatl’s husband spoke with the man leading the wagon, gesturing to Sophie and Winter, and then he nodded at them and took his hat off. “Goodbye,” he said solemnly.

“Goodbye!” Sophie cried. “Thank you! Please thank Ihuicatl for me!”

The village children had somehow realized that the strangers were leaving because they walked alongside the wagon (which was going at quite a slow pace) for quite a ways, waving at both of them, before they fell back and stood by the side of the road, waving goodbye at them. Sophie waved at them until they turned around a bend and the children fell out of sight. Then there was nothing to see but the dusty road behind them and the mountains dotting the landscape, valleys and plains interspersed in between. Sophie felt a pang of sadness at leaving the village behind. She’d only been there one day but such friendly people…

She settled back onto her perch on the mound of corn, trying to dig a little seat for herself. She had a feeling they’d be here for a while so she may as well get comfy, right? Sitting on ears of corn wasn’t exactly comfortable but eventually she’d dug herself into a little seat that felt okay. She let her left arm rest on the wagon’s edge and stared out at the scenery passing her by. Despite having ears of corn press up against her butt and legs, sitting in a swaying wagon with her violent kidnapper, being taken towards the destination where she would surely be tortured or used for nefarious purposes…Sophie was at peace. Just for this very moment, looking out at the silhouettes of mountains, the green plains and steppes, the pale blue skies, she felt temporarily at peace. Life sucked but at least the view was great!

However, the view got old eventually. It was probably ungrateful of her but there was only so much you could look at mountains and valleys and the sky before you had really seen it all. They passed through a few villages but had picked up their pace and didn’t stop anywhere. She wished she had one of her favorite books but the wagon was jostling so much that she probably would have gotten motion sickness trying to read anyway. Eventually she closed her eyes and let herself rest. She didn’t fall asleep but she fell into a sort of stupor, lost in daydreams about her apartment and her parents and curling up with a good book on her couch… She briefly wondered for one crazy moment what would happen if she leaped from the wagon and made a run for it—but as soon as she thought of the plan, she realized how stupid it was. Where would she run? Who would she go to for help? Besides, he was much faster than she was. He’d leap off and come after her and then he would physically drag her back to the wagon.

“So what does Hydra want to do with me?” she asked conversationally, hands folded on her stomach, eyes still closed. He didn’t respond and she opened one eye to see him staring at her as if he couldn’t believe she was talking about this so casually. “Well?” she pressed. “They seem like a pretty big deal, H—”

He slammed a hand over her mouth so hard that she let out a cry of pain. “Don’t say their name out loud again,” he hissed. Sophie tried to bite his hand but he yanked it away in time. She tasted blood and touched her lip; he had split it. _Just like old times_ , she thought bitterly, wiping the blood away with her sweater’s sleeve. Her mouth tasted like coppery tears.

“Fine,” she said angrily. “What do _they_ want with me, huh? After all this, the least you could do is tell me.”

He was silent for a long moment. Then— “I don’t know.” The admission was said in a low voice.

“You don’t know,” Sophie repeated. She’d guessed that he didn’t know _why_ they wanted her but she had to admit, she’d thought he’d have some clue what they would do with her once they got her.

“It’s not my job to know,” he said coldly.

“Right,” she said just as coldly. “It’s just your job to fetch—like their dog. What was it you called yourself? Their asset. Good boy, asset. Sit, asset. Jump, asset—”

He leaned in close to her face, looking livid, blue-green eyes narrowed, and hissed, “Shut up. Right _now_.”

She leaned in close to him as well (though she had to angle her face upward) until they were almost nose-to-nose and hissed back, “Make me.” It was a stupid and dangerous thing to say but she was tired of giving him the benefit of the doubt when he refused to tell her anything and was clearly still planning on delivering her to Hydra. Why the hell did she even care if he’d been tortured or brainwashed? Why was she wasting her time trying to figure his story out? He didn’t deserve that, did he? He’d done nothing but hurt her and cause her misery and pain. He didn’t deserve her sympathy at all!

He roughly grabbed her chin with his metal thumb and forefinger, pinching it _hard_ and jerking her face up so she was staring directly at him. She nearly shrieked at the pain but bit her lip hard to keep from crying out, her eyes stinging. _I won’t give him the satisfaction. I WON’T._ “I can,” he said dangerously, leaning in so close she could have kissed him—or ripped his nose off with her teeth. Either or. “Don’t. Forget. That.” Then he roughly let her go, letting her jerk backwards and hit her head on the back of the wooden wagon.

The man sitting behind them—who had largely been ignoring them so far—let out a cry of shock and twisted around, clearly asking Sophie if she was okay. She nodded and smiled and waved it off, resisting the urge to rub the back of her head. The man gave Winter a disapproving look and then slowly turned back around.

After their little tiff—and Sophie privately thought to herself that it was amazing she could call such a thing a _tiff_ now—they sat in silence. She stared resolutely away from him, making sure to pointedly look in the opposite direction from him, but she could feel his eyes locked on her. It made her skin feel prickly and uncomfortable, a hot itchy feeling creeping up her neck and cheeks and ears. She didn’t like being stared at, a leftover from all her years shyly ducking away from the spotlight. She sat there for as long as she possibly could but finally she snapped and turned to him and demanded, “Do you _have_ to stare at me? What do you think I’m going to do, fly away into the sky?”

His expression didn’t change as he stared at her but she _thought_ she saw something smug glinting in his eyes. _He’s doing it on purpose to make me feel uncomfortable_! Fury rose up in her and before she could control herself, she had grabbed an ear of corn and chucked it at him as hard as she could, snapping, “Stop STARING!” His hand shot out and grabbed the corn but she had already thrown another piece, saying, “Look away!” and this one smacked him right in the face.

She hadn’t expected that. She froze, holding her breath and staring at him. How was he going to retaliate? She hoped it didn’t involve ramming an entire ear of corn down her throat whole or something like that but with _him_ , it seemed like she never knew. (And yes, she was aware that her imagination was running wild again.)

He tossed the ears of corn aside, rubbing his face, but instead of looking angry…he looked thoughtful. Almost contemplative. His eyes were narrowed but he looked like he was pondering something. A chill stole down Sophie’s spine; she didn’t like that look. That look made him seem like he was _planning_ something. Her punishment? “Sorry,” she squeaked, unable to stop herself. Perhaps if she apologized… “I didn’t think it would— I thought you would grab it.”

His head tilted to the side slightly as he surveyed her and she felt even more uncomfortable. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was going to pay for this. She remembered how he had reacted the last time she’d been really insolent towards him: he’d slapped her so hard her balance had been thrown off and she’d bled badly. It was clear he wasn’t going to respond anytime soon so she buried her face into her drawn-up knees, trying to avoid his gaze. Her cheeks felt hot and her heart was beating a bit too fast. She realized she was anxious and afraid. She’d gotten…complacent with him, the last few days, but the terrifying, cunning look in his eyes now reminded her of what he was capable of.

The wagon jostled on and Sophie eventually lifted her head to watch the sky slowly change colors. Pale blue began to streak with orange and gold tones, slowly puffs of pink blending into the sky, turning the entire world into a beautiful marble. The pink and blue mixed to form lavender which darkened to purple bordering on deep blue. The mountains began to appear as distant silhouettes and Sophie had the feeling that they were passing their way out of the mountain chain completely. They’d been heading on a steady downward slope at a low-grade angle and the air seemed to be getting heavier, her lungs expanding a bit more. She hadn’t even realized how difficult it had been to breathe up in the mountains till they had begun descending from them.

They passed through villages, some big and some small, lit up in the darkness. The air was warm and began to feel almost muggy the further they got away from the mountains. Sophie shrugged her thick black sweater off and pushed the sleeves of her red dress up. She held her hair up from the nape of her neck with one hand and fanned her neck with the other hand, wishing fervently that she had a hair tie. She'd had one but it had gotten lost at some point.

“Why did you agree to go to Brazil?”

 _Whoa_. Her eyes widened and she looked at Winter with shock. She wasn’t sure but she thought this might have been the first time in their short and tenuous relationship that he’d ever asked her a question first. “What?” she asked, both bewildered by his question and the fact that he was even asking her a question.

“You’re being agreeable about going to Brazil,” he said slowly, thoughtfully, eyes still narrowed slightly. “Why? You know what’s waiting for you. So why help me take you there?”

“I’m not planning anything, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said irritably.

“Tell me,” he said and she shivered at the commanding tone in his voice. This was a man who wasn’t used to people not following his orders.

“Listen,” she said, trying to quell her irritation. “I had three options, okay? Option one: wander around the Andes mountains with you for forever. Option two: try to escape from you. Option three: help you get me to Brazil.” She paused and noticed that even though he was expressionless, as always, he was sitting as still as stone and seemed to be hanging on to her every word. _Interesting_. “Well, option one sounded horrible,” she said. “And option two seemed stupid and pointless. You’d only hunt me down and hurt me and force me to come with you anyway.” She paused graciously, wondering if he’d protest or at least have the grace to look ashamed. He did neither, taking it in stride that she expected him to hurt her. She clenched her fists and continued through gritted teeth, hating the violence he seemed to bring up in her. “So option three it is. I mean, you’re going to take me to Brazil whether you have to drag my dead body there or not—right? So…whatever. Why run from fate?” She laughed tiredly. “I’ve kind of given up hoping I’d ever make it home. Now I’m just hoping for the best. I _thought_ you might be able to prepare me for what Hydra is going to do to me, but…” She stared moodily out at the dark night sky. “Looks like I’m really on my own in this.”

He had no reply to this. _Of course he doesn’t_. She rolled her eyes. Traveling with a ghost was really getting annoying. It was a constant cycle of assault, silence, and strange vulnerability. She honestly would have preferred a kidnapper who couldn’t stop blathering about his evil plans because then at least she would have been able to get some useful information out of them.

Speaking of information… She looked at Winter and curiously said, “You haven’t contacted anyone. Don’t you have a cell phone?”

His mouth was a flat line. “Shut up.”

“Touchy,” she murmured. “I’m sorry, I should have realized they don’t trust you with a phone—”

“I don’t _need_ a phone,” he snarled, lunging forward and grabbing her head with his hands in a crushing grip. Sophie desperately tried to twist out of his grasp but his grip was too strong. It felt like he was crushing her facial bones and an earsplitting pain began to build up in her head. “I’ve never needed to check in—I’ve never needed help—I always get the mission done—before I met _you_ , you stupid, insufferable, piece of sh—”

The wagon screeched to a halt and they were both thrown backwards, apart from each other. Sophie rubbed her head, her eyes watering, trying to control her hitched breathing, as the wagon driver twisted around and began shouting at them in Spanish. Sophie had no idea what he was saying but judging by his panicked, angry, and half-afraid expression, he didn’t like them assaulting each other in his wagon and wouldn’t be pleased at all to find two dead bodies in it the next time he turned around.

At least that’s what she _thought_ he meant.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Sophie repeated, hoping he understood her pleading expression. “ _Él es_ … _loco_ ,” she finally finished, pointing to Winter. “ _Es mi…hermoso. Él es…deprimido. Necesitas ayuda…? Un_ doctor…no… _un médico en Brazil. Por favor_ …um…” She desperately wracked her mind for the right term. “Per… _perdónanos. Nosotros estamos muy…agradeciados…para tu ayuda._ ” She winced at the man’s horrified expression as she butchered his language but she waited, waiting to see what his final reaction was. She’d basically told him that her husband was crazy and depressed and they were going to see a doctor in Brazil for help and they really appreciated his help in driving them.

Or, at least, that’s what she hoped she said. She still remembered the time in high school when she’d said, “ _Yo estoy embarazada_ ,” to imply that she was embarrassed…and had ended up saying that she was pregnant.

Ironically…that had been pretty damn embarrassing.

The man still looked leery but finally he grudgingly nodded and turned around, cracking his reins to get the horses moving again. Sophie exhaled in relief and then glared at Winter, still rubbing her sore head. “Will you _control_ yourself?” she hissed. “I understand that violence is your number one solution to everything but you’re going to get us thrown off this wagon and then what are we going to do? _Walk_ to Brazil? Good luck with that.”

* * *

 

“Good luck with that.” And with those words, she crossed her thin arms and turned away from him, glaring in a different direction.

He felt…contrite. Somewhat. It was a strange, foreign feeling so he wasn’t exactly sure how to label it—and he sure as hell would never have said it out loud—but he _did_ feel somewhat…regretful about his behavior in the past few hours. He kept losing his temper and attacking her. She was right; it was short-sighted and foolish of him. He was drawing too much attention to them and would get them thrown off this wagon. Either that or he would end up harming the girl and he had been ordered to deliver her relatively unharmed…

It was just that she was so infuriating he sometimes completely forgot his orders and saw red. He’d never known a human being to cause him so much rage and especially not someone so damn small. How could someone her size be so enraging? What had happened to the shy, timid, weak girl he’d kidnapped over a week ago? He couldn’t believe he was feeling this way but he almost _missed_ the girl who’d burst into tears at the drop of a hat and had cowered in a corner every time he’d glared at her. She’d been exasperating but she’d been…easy. Easy to control, easy to subdue, easy to terrify, easy to guess her next behaviors and words.

Now…she wasn’t as easy. And it bothered him immensely.

She was complicated now. No matter how many times he got rough with her to show her her place—to put a little fear back into her soul—she was getting further and further from the timid girl she’d been. She got bolder and braver as time went on and he didn’t know how to stop it. He wasn’t equipped to deal with this garbage. Grab and deliver, shoot and kill, target acquired, target eliminated. This was how he worked: quickly, violently, efficiently, coldly. He didn’t take his mask off. He didn’t get lost. He didn’t get off track. And he certainly didn’t _talk_ to his targets in any way that could be conversational.

And yet here they were—all the rules being thrown out the window. The idea made him twitchy and uncomfortable, sweaty and agitated, as if he was trapped in his own skin. He wanted to get away from her, to spend some time alone, but he had to keep watching her every move. It was the only thing that kept her from trying to escape from him and wasting his time.

But he realized that it wasn’t just her that was bothering him so much. It was being away from Hydra for so long. His missions had never gone this long before and when they did… He frowned to himself, sorting his thoughts. They prepped him for a longer time than normal. Everything was planned. Everything had deadlines. His memories always felt chaotic—some blurred, some sharp, bits and details about past missions floating to the forefront, training and regimen and rules always flowing in the undercurrent throughout his whole mind—but he definitely knew that he had never been this disconnected from Hydra before. Never been this free—

_Wait._

Wait.

Why had he…

Free. Why had he used that word? What was there to be free from? There was…nothing, was there? Nothing. He was the asset and he had a role to do and he did it well and—

Yet…

His bones felt strangely loose, his mind stretched. Almost as if he were floating. He felt like he had more…control. Despite having _less_ control over his target and losing complete control of this goddamn mission—

He couldn’t shake the thought that he was more in control, in a way, because he was having to choose what to do next. No strike agents watching his every move. No rigid schedule to follow. No protocols. Nothing. Just…silence. A goal. And a girl.

And the shadows.

The shadows were getting worse. He couldn’t shake them and he couldn’t shape them, either, couldn’t will them to form solid shapes so he could figure out what the hell they meant or who the hell they were. He vaguely wondered if being away from Hydra meant he was losing his mind. He’d never lost his mind before. Perhaps this was what insanity was. Blurry memories that seemed _different_ , that seemed to have a golden tint—flashing images and sounds of people he thought he knew but surely didn’t, surely _couldn’t_ —and a name, a name, the mere sound and memory of a name that made him feel…

Well. This was all stupid. It was stupid to think about any of this. He needed to focus completely on the mission. Finish the damn mission, deliver the damn girl, and then… He shook his head, feeling a bit nauseous for some reason. Then whatever happened to him after. Memories of being tested and then being cold. Something like that. Stupid. _Stupid_.

Still…the things she’d asked. He couldn’t help but wonder. It wasn’t his place to wonder—he never had before, had never cared, never thought about it—but he couldn’t help but do it now. He didn’t know why but his mind felt slightly clearer, not so frazzled and fuzzy and chaotic. He was thinking about things that normally didn’t even exist in his mind, such as her question… What _were_ they going to do with her when they got her? It would have been helpful if he knew why they even wanted her in the first place… He couldn’t imagine what Hydra needed with a skinny little brat like her. She probably had important connections.

But what were they going to do to her? He pondered it while staring at her. Were they going to hurt her? Torture her? He didn’t imagine she could withstand much torture—though you never knew. She’d withstood all of _his_ brutality so far, which was…surprising.

_Why am I thinking about this?_

Stupid.

He shook his head, trying to shake the cobwebs and confusing thoughts away.

_So stupid._

 

           

 

 

           

           

           


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: First of all, thank you guys SO much for your well-wishes, support, and encouragement after my A/N on the last update. I'm not gonna lie: things have still been hard...but I'm slowly doing more and more better with time! I'm feeling much more alive and awake, and I love you guys so much for how patient you and supportive you are. 
> 
> Second of all, have you guys seen Luke Cage and Agents of SHIELD season 3 so far? They're on FIRE. I'm so happy to see the MCU expand! 
> 
> Let me know what you think of the chapter with a review below! I love hearing from all of you!

They traveled through the night. It was possibly the worst sleep of Sophie’s night. It was even more uncomfortable than having Winter sleep right next to her, which, she had to admit, had been terrifying at first but not so bad once she’d gotten over the idea. In the long run, what did it matter anyway? She’d already done so many things she’d never have been comfortable with doing before.

But this was a whole new level of uncomfortable— _literally_. She felt like her neck was going to have a permanent crick in it, her back and shoulders and butt and legs all felt sore and bruised from jostling around on the hard ears of corn… She could have wept but she’d bitten her lip and controlled herself. She wasn’t going to cry in front of him again if she could help it.

She dozed off somehow and woke up to bright sunshine and sweet, sweet stillness. The wagon was no longer moving or jostling. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, feeling the midday heat through her thick sweater (which she’d put on during the night). She sat up, finger-combing her hair, and blinked at the scene around her. They were parked in some sort of dusty small town square and there was a large crowd of people standing a ways off, all with bags and small suitcases and rucksacks. Many of them wore coats despite the heat and hats as well. They looked like travelers. Most of them had the tanned skin and glossy dark hair of Peruvians but a few looked like foreigners, paler skin and blonde hair, and Sophie felt her heart lift into her throat a bit. If she could just get to them and signal to them that she had been kidnapped—

A cold, hard hand gripped her shoulder, almost squeezing her neck, and she heard him whisper, “Don’t. Even. Think about it.”

She inhaled through the pain and hissed back, “Or what?”

“Or I _will_ massacre every single person in this town to shut you up.”

She went pale at the thought. She could hear the threat in his voice—he wasn’t kidding. “Okay,” she said. “I get it. You don’t have to worry.”

 _Foiled once again_ , she thought to herself in a mock-villain voice and couldn’t help but chuckle to herself. Hey, a girl had to find humor in the darkest situations, didn’t she?

The driver of the wagon was nowhere to be seen. Sophie wanted to be let down but she figured she had to wait for him to return from whatever he was doing to unlatch the back gate of the wagon. She smoothed out the skirt of her dress, ready to wait patiently, when Winter stood up and suddenly vaulted himself over the edge of the wagon. She stifled her cry of shock—of course, he _would_ do something like this, even though the edge of the huge wagon was about seven feet off the ground—and stood up on slightly-wobbly feet, balancing on ears of corn, to see that he had landed on his feet.

 _Well, looks like I’m going to have to jump too_. She balanced on the ears of corn at the edge of the wagon, staring doubtfully down at the ground. This wasn’t going to end well. She could barely walk without tripping over her own two feet, what made her think—

She suddenly noticed that Winter had strolled around to her side of the cart and was holding out his hands. She stared down at him, unsure as to what he wanted her to do. Was she supposed to clasp his hands? She bent down cautiously, reaching out for them, and he grabbed her waist suddenly and pulled her safely down to the ground. Sophie let out an odd whooshing sound before she could stop herself and hurriedly stepped away from him, smoothing her dress down again. “Thanks,” she muttered before she could stop herself. Then she frowned. Why was she showing him her manners?

For the same reason she had stitched him up, really. At heart, Sophie was a good, idealistic person.

It was the same reason she’d ruined her own life, really.

The driver of the wagon wandered up, carrying a glass bottle filled with what looked like Coca Cola, and began saying something to them in Spanish. Both Sophie and Winter stared at him, neither of them comprehending what in the world he was saying. “Uh…” Sophie began, unsure as to how to communicate that they were clueless when suddenly someone spoke up near her and she jumped in alarm.

“He’s saying that this is as far as he can take you.”

Sophie turned to see one of the blonde women from the group up ahead smiling at her. She looked to be in her early thirties, with short blonde hair, dark sunglasses, and sensible, sturdy tourist clothing. She also had, inexplicably, a shiny silver lip piercing. Her accent was American and Sophie hardly trusted herself to speak without throwing herself sobbing at the woman’s feet. She was so _normal_. Sophie felt like it had been years since she’d spoken to someone who spoke her language—literally.

“I…um…thank you,” she said, clearing her throat, uncomfortably aware of Winter’s dangerous gaze on her. He was watching for any signal. Well, she wasn’t going to give one. She didn’t want to be responsible for all these deaths. “Can you…can you ask him where we’re supposed to go from here? He’ll understand— And…and also thank him for us? If you can, please?”

The woman turned and spoke to the driver in easy, assured Spanish. He responded and she turned back to Sophie. “He says you’re welcome and that you’re supposed to take this bus here—I’m getting on the same one myself,” she added, “is the one you need to get to your destination.” She looked a bit puzzled then, as if wondering what their destination was.

“Right,” Sophie said after a pause. “And—um—what _is_ the destination of this bus?”

“Well, it runs through the border of Peru into parts of Brazil,” she said, still looking a bit confused. “It’s like—well, you’re American, right?”

Sophie could almost _feel_ Winter tense, even though he was a few feet away. _Yes. YES, I AM. Please, oh please, somehow recognize me and be smart enough not to give anything away and save me. Please alert someone on your own._ Even as she had these wild thoughts, Sophie knew there wasn’t much hope. This woman probably hadn’t been anywhere near America when—if—Sophie’s face had circulated the news and besides, the most recent photo her mother would have had of her…would have been, oh yes, that atrocious photo from three years ago, when she’d just graduated college. She’d had longer hair then, a very weird dyed blonde streak (that had been a mistake) in her side bangs (which no longer existed), and a much healthier-looking face. Even back when she’d been home, she hardly resembled the photo—she couldn’t even imagine how different she looked _now_.

And she didn’t want to dwell on how sad it was that the most recent photo her mother would have of her…would have been from three years ago.

“Yes,” she said faintly.

“It’s kind of like a Greyhound bus,” the lady explained. “It’s made for travelers. I think it travels up and down a certain path in Peru and Brazil—and maybe some other countries—but right now it’s headed to Brazil. It’ll stop some places along the way, however.”

“How…how long will it take to get to Brazil?” Sophie asked, trying to be sound polite when all she wanted to do was rush at the woman and grab her shoulders, shake her and scream at her. She needed her to recognize her so badly. She needed her to recognize her _without_ Sophie tipping her off, because—

Sophie’s gut constricted in shame. _Because if the woman figures it out on her own, Winter catches wind of it, and then kills everyone—at least then it won’t be my fault._

She was a horrible person.

“Hmmm…” The woman frowned, thinking. “Last I checked…with a few stops along the way… Well, where in Brazil are you guys headed? I think the last stop in Brazil is in the city of Brasilia, which is where my boyfriend and I are headed. That should take about…three to four days, I think. Maybe five.” Seeing Sophie’s appalled expression, she chuckled and said, “They don’t drive as fast as we do in America.”

 “I’ll say,” Sophie said faintly.

“So where are you guys headed?” she asked again. Sophie couldn’t tell if she was being suspiciously nosy or just normally inquisitive. Had she really forgotten how to interact with normal people over a few days? But then again…Sophie had been avoiding people _way_ before Winter had kidnapped her on Hydra’s behalf. This wasn’t even his fault; it was her fault. Every time she tried talking normally to people, she couldn’t help but think of all the things that could go wrong. Ihuicatl had been different; there’d been no risk with her because there had been no technology.

“Just roaming.” Winter finally spoke, having come up behind Sophie silently. She thanked the heavens that his voice sounded normal: a bit toneless but cordial enough. She glanced back at him. His face was the same: pretty expressionless but casual enough to seem like he was just bored…and not actually empty of emotions.

He probably just seemed like a really quiet boring—or bored—guy.

“Holly!” A man broke off from the group ahead and wandered up behind the blonde woman. He was tall, blond himself, and handsome in a pleasant, genial sort of way. He looked to be in his early thirties as well. He stood behind Holly and gave her a kiss on the cheek, making it clear who he was. “Who are these folks?”

“Rob, meet—oh!” Holly laughed. “I’m so rude, I never actually got your names _or_ told you mine! Well, you already sort of know now…but I’m Holly. And this is my boyfriend, Rob. You?”

Sophie knew Winter wouldn’t allow her to give her real name and it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway because the woman clearly didn’t recognize her; still, she felt depressed as she said, “Um…Shelly. And this is…” She trailed off. Could she call Winter just a friend? Even among liberal Americans, she knew a lot of people thought a guy and girl being just friends was weird; traveling with just a guy friend would seem even weirder. “My husband,” she said, remembering her lie to Ihuicatl’s husband. “Will.”

“Husband, huh?” Holly grinned. “So where are the rings?”

 _Oh, shit._ Sophie’s stomach dropped. She had completely forgotten that married couples usually wore rings. Ihuicatl’s husband hadn’t noticed but this woman…

“Did I say husband?” she said with a nervous, strained laugh. “I meant…he _will_ be my husband, hopefully!” She hoped she sounded adoring and love struck but had a feeling her voice just sounded shrill. “He’s just my boyfriend right now! Waiting for him to pop the question anytime soon!” She winked at Holly and let out a weak chuckle.

Luckily, if Holly and Rob noticed anything wrong with Sophie’s behavior, they didn’t remark upon it. “Sure,” Holly said, grinning. “Rob hasn’t proposed yet either.” She elbowed Rob in the stomach and he danced out of the way, laughing. “I’m saving up for a ring,” he protested. “I spent all my money paying for this trip!”

“Eh, good enough.” Holly shrugged. “Listen, I’m not sure when the bus will show. It was supposed to be here thirty minutes ago but like I said, they’re not so fussy about time here. You guys want to go grab a drink with Rob and I at this cute little restaurant here?”

Winter suddenly wrapped his arm around Sophie’s waist and squeezed her tightly to him, so hard that she had to suppress a gasp. “Sorry,” she heard him say tightly. “I need to talk with…my girlfriend really quickly. It’s private.”

“Oh.” Holly looked surprised. “Well…okay! Sure. We’ll see you guys on the bus.” She grabbed Rob’s hand and walked away as Winter dragged Sophie in the opposite direction.

“What was that?” he hissed, grabbing her shoulders and spinning her to face him.

“Careful,” Sophie said through gritted teeth, noticing that Holly was shooting them curious looks over her shoulder as she walked away. “People are watching.”

He loosened his grip and straightened up slightly. “What are you doing?” he repeatedly tightly, anger snapping in his eyes like electricity. “Who allowed you to start talking to those people?”

“We needed someone to give us information!” she said, stung. “And _you’re_ not exactly Mr. Talkative! Besides, I maintained your lies, didn’t I?” She shifted uncomfortably. _Why_ did _I maintain his lies_? she wondered. _Is this really all about keeping the people in the village safe?_

It had to be, right?

She couldn’t think of any other reason she’d be going along, and even sort of helping, with his scheme.

 _Huh._ Her brain felt swirly and confused and she desperately craved a cup of hot tea so she could just sit down and sort it all out in her mind. She couldn’t pin down her thoughts or feelings right now. Also, she felt really itchy and hot in this thick sweater. The climate was much hotter down here than in the mountains.

“So can you act normal?” she whispered. “I don’t want you to kill everyone here so I am going along with your lies—but it’s really hard to make them convincing when you act like a silent freak! I know you’re, like, a robot or something but can you at least _pretend_ to be normal? I feel like I’m doing more work than you are to deliver me to Hydra!”

He looked a bit shocked. The expression was strange on him. She didn’t know what he was surprised at: her admitting she was helping him for some reason…or her sudden, newfound assertiveness. Or was it aggressiveness? Whatever. Either way, she wasn’t acting like her old, shy self.

At least not with him. With normal people like Holly, she turned into a stammering fool again, apparently.

“Okay,” he said suddenly, taking a step back from her, surprising her further by his easy agreement.

The man with the wagon full of corn had left by the time that they walked back to the clearing. Sophie blinked, a little thrown off by his abrupt departure, but she supposed she and Winter hadn’t been anything sentimental to him. Just a random pair of misfit travelers. Winter clearly did not want to wait among the group of travelers but Sophie walked up to the fringe of the group. She heard him suppress a small sigh and follow her.

Several people glanced at them as they walked up and she noticed their eyes widen as their gazes fell upon Winter. He wasn’t _that_ scary-looking, was he? She glanced at him and was almost bowled over in horror when she realized something awful that she’d never considered before: his _clothes_. He was still wearing all-black combat fatigues. He still wore the baggy black cardigan Ihuicatl had given him, but he hadn't zipped it up for some mad reason and his black combat vest was visible along with his pants and boots. It hadn’t mattered so much in the other village, where no one could ask them questions if they wanted to, but there were English-speakers here. What on Earth were they going to say? _And_ he was wearing a black glove over his left hand! 

“Army?” a bald man asked, nodding to Winter, who was determinedly staring into the distance and avoiding locking gazes with anyone.

Sophie fell upon the excuse with relief. “Yes,” she said quietly. “He…doesn’t like to talk about it. But he feels more at home in the clothes. He says it was like he was born to wear them but they’re also a curse.” Her voice picked up speed as she wove her story. It was coming naturally. She drew upon all the books she’d read in her life for inspiration.

The man nodded respectfully. “I hear you. I’ve got some buddies in the army. It really changes them.”

“It does.” Sophie nodded sadly, really getting into the role. 

“So…the glove?” the man whispered.

Sophie stared at him. That was a rather rude question, wasn’t it? But he didn’t give any indication that he was aware he’d asked a nosy question. “Lost it in battle,” she whispered back, hoping her tone was reflecting the appropriate heaviness. “He has an…um…prosthetic. So he wears a glove to feel less self-conscious. I wouldn’t ask him about it. He has bad PTSD at times.”

“Of course,” the man said, sounding awed, staring at Winter—who Sophie was absolutely positive could hear them. “Never seen uniforms like his before—but I’m no expert. Well, tell him I thank him for his service to our country. You are American, right?” he asked somewhat aggressively.

“Y-Yes,” Sophie stammered.

“Good. There were some hoity-toity Brits in the group somewhere.” He glanced around as if they might appear right next to him suddenly and invite him for tea. “Couldn’t stand them. You don’t _sound_ British but neither did they, actually.”

“Okay,” she said nervously, edging away from his angry expression. She wondered if he was sort of deranged. “Well…” And she turned away, thankful to be away from his nosy questions. Who on Earth asked about the hand of a man they thought to have fought in the army? How incredibly tactless of him.

 _I have to keep track of my lies_ , she realized. _My name is Shelly and his name is… Dammit, what was his name again?! Oh yeah: Will. I’m Shelly and he’s Will. We’re dating and hopelessly in love._ She snorted derisively at the thought and saw Winter shoot her an almost curious look. _I’m hoping he’ll propose to me soon. He was in the army, he has PTSD, and he lost a hand in combat._

That part could have been true, for all Sophie knew. He _had_ lost an arm somehow. She stared at his left arm and wondered yet again how such an amazing, realistic prosthetic could exist.

Then again, how could _he_ exist, with his super reflexes, speed, and strength? By all logic, _he_ should have been impossible. He was actually sort of like Captain America, from what she’d heard of Captain America: super strong, super fast, just all around…super. But whereas Captain America was the day, the Winter Soldier was the night. She wondered who’d win in a fight. She’d never seen Captain America fight in person but she’d seen grainy footage of him fighting in New York City two years ago and it had been amazing. And she’d seen firsthand how powerful Winter was.

The bus finally pulled up. It was as large as Greyhound bus but was painted bright red with green, yellow, and pink toucans painted on it. It was really cool and Sophie wished she had a camera so she could snap a photo of it. She’d never seen a bus this funky looking before. There was a large compartment on one side near the base where people could stow their bags if they wanted. Sophie noticed that the people who looked like native Peruvians were more willing to stow their bags there while the foreign tourist types clutched their bags protectively to their chests, as if some great thief was going to swoop down from the sky and steal their suntan lotion from them.

 _And where would the thief even go_? she wondered, fighting back a laugh.

She and Winter had no real luggage with them so while everyone else was congregating into a messy crowd (lines were not du jour here it seemed) they boarded the bus. Holly and Rob were already sitting near the back and Holly caught sight of Sophie and waved. “Hey, come sit by us!” she called. Sophie hesitated and in that moment, Winter slid into a seat and yanked her in roughly. Clearly he wanted to stay as far away from Holly and Rob as possible.

Holly was not so easily deterred. Sophie felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see Holly grinning at her from behind them. “Didn’t you hear me?” she asked.

“Oh—no, sorry,” Sophie said, hoping her lie wasn’t too obvious.

“Come sit with us!” she said, hooking a thumb to the back of the bus.

There was really no polite way to refuse so Sophie pinched Winter’s right hand and said, “Um, okay! Sure.” She stood up and followed Holly to the back. Holly and Rob were sitting in the last row of seats to the left so Sophie and Winter slid into the seats on the right, right across from them. She could tell Winter wanted to trap her in the window seat but she gave him a surreptitious glare and stomped on his foot as quietly as possible. _Holly will think it’s weird_. She hoped he got the message.

Sophie soon regretted following Holly to the back. The woman was too talkative and inquisitive. She didn’t seem to accept Sophie’s shyness as an excuse at all. Sophie was torn between wanting to let the woman know who she was—she had no doubt that someone like Holly would take it upon themselves to become a do-gooder and save the poor kidnapped girl—but she also didn’t want Winter to go crazy and kill everyone on the bus. They were in such a small, confined space…it would probably be so easy for him. She hadn’t forgotten the ruthlessness with which he had dragged her down a flight of stairs. Or torn her shoulder out of alignment. Or thrown her out in front of a bunch of would-be rapists as bait.  

_God, what a supreme asshole._

Although he _had_ saved her from the would-be rapists and knocked them all out. That part had been good, them learning their lesson. Perhaps they’d think twice before preying on some innocent girl next time.

Holly’s endless chatter finally wore down a few hours into the bumpy bus ride and she leaned her head on Rob’s chest, who was already asleep, his head lolling against the window. “Aren’t you tired?” Holly whispered.

_Yes. Of your never-ending talk._

“Yep,” Sophie said.

“So go to sleep,” Holly urged.

_Mind your own business._

“Okay,” Sophie said. She folded her arms and slumped down in her seat, trying to get comfortable.

Holly chuckled. “Why aren’t you leaning on your boyfriend? Girl, that’s what they’re _for_.” Sophie blushed—though for not the reasons Holly thought—and Holly smiled. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

 “And how old is he?”

_Lady, I have no idea._

“Twenty-nine,” Sophie said, hoping the age worked for army requirements. She really had no idea how old you had to be to go into combat.

“Young couples. You guys are always so cute, the way you’re shy with each other. Lean on him!” Holly said. She was smiling but her tone was pushy. She was one of those obnoxious people, Sophie realized, who didn’t take no for an answer. Sophie hesitated, wondering what to do now. If she refused to lean on Winter, would she look weird? God, why did this woman care anyway? Maybe she didn’t want to lean on her boyfriend. Maybe her boyfriend was abusive or maybe he had a phobia of being touched. Why couldn’t people mind their own business? Why—

Winter suddenly put his arm around Sophie’s shoulders and pulled her down so her head was resting on his shoulder.

Sophie immediately froze and then tried to force herself to relax, hoping Holly hadn’t noticed her temporary alarm. Holly smiled a self-satisfied smile. _Jesus Christ._ Then she closed her eyes, settled back onto Rob’s chest, and fell asleep.

“Is she asleep?” Winter murmured in a low voice.

“Yes,” Sophie whispered.

He immediately nudged her off of him. Sophie felt something hot and sharp course through her, burning her face and making her heart flutter fast in both anger and embarrassment. It took her a moment to realize she was feeling the sting of _rejection_. But of course, that was stupid. Why the hell should she feel _rejected_ because he shoved her off of him? She didn’t want to sleep on him and he’d only pulled her down to shut that annoying woman up.

She still felt embarrassed and annoyed, for some reason. And she found she couldn’t look at Winter.

She folded her arms and stared out of Holly’s window at the little scenery she could see that wasn’t blocked by Rob’s head and shoulders. She could hear faint chatting from other seats but the bus was quiet for the most part, save for the hum and rumble of the bus speeding over rocky, bumpy roads towards Brazil. The vibrating hum of the bus and quiet eventually put Sophie to sleep. She couldn’t help it; she’d had a horrible night’s sleep the previous night, jostling around in a wagon, sitting on a mountain of corn, and the noises and feel of the bus were too soothing to resist.

* * *

 

He was watching her from the corner of his eye, of course. He hadn’t been keeping as close an eye on her the past few days because she’d been right; really, where was she going to run off to? But now there were Americans in the mix and nosy ones at that, so he watched her carefully to make sure she didn’t somehow tip the stupid blonde woman off in any way. He wanted to strangle the blonde woman and launch her body over the nearest mountain. Did her incessant speaking _never_ end? Why had she formed such an attachment to the girl? He considered for a moment that the woman was a spy—but no. He knew when something around him was amiss and he could tell: the woman was just a nosy, annoying human being.

The man with her, on the other hand, gave him a strange feeling. He’d done nothing wrong—by all accounts, he was much more normal than his girlfriend. He didn’t talk as much and wasn’t as prying. However, something about the man rubbed him the wrong way and he resolved to keep an eye on the man as well.

The girl’s eyes slid shut and her head drooped forward slightly, chin lolling on her chest. It looked like an uncomfortable pose but he certainly wasn’t going to do anything about it. She stayed like that for a few moments and then the bus passed through a sharp bend in the road and the girl fell against him, slumping against his cybernetic arm.

He froze. Waited, hoping she would wake up on her own and move away. But she didn’t. So he gently pushed her upright, hoping to move her into a different position. She stayed up for a few seconds and then fell against him again, her dark head leaning against his shoulder. He noticed the shadows under her eyes and sighed. It wouldn’t do to kill her from exhaustion before they arrived—and they were so close now. He was so close to finishing this on his own. There was a reason he hadn’t contacted Hydra by now, though he possibly could have done so (stolen a phone or something) and had them airlifted out of here. Now it was almost like a challenge; he’d never had to call in for help on a mission before, he didn’t think, and he didn’t plan on starting now. He _would_ deliver the girl and he would do it on his own through his own skill and determination.

He shifted slightly so that he was leaning against the wall and lifted his arm, pulling the girl up so her head rested somewhat on his chest, under his arm, and then he put his arm back down, draped over her shoulders.

Something—

Hmmm. Something had just… He winced and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the dull ache of the mountain lion’s slashes across his whole chest. He’d just had…a strange image in his head. Sitting on some grass under the shade of a tree, a blonde woman with curly hair resting her head against his chest, his arm around her, both of them talking. He could almost _feel_ the corners of his mouth turn up in a faint memory smile and it shook him, bewildered him. Why did the image feel so real, as if he’d done it? He couldn’t have done it. For one thing, his arm had been…flesh. For another—

He’d never done that. Had he?

 _Had_ he?

He sat stone still, frantically trying to untangle the image in his mind, but it was already mixing up with all the other chaotic images in his minds—blood, a gun, a frosty glass pane, a blond boy, blood, a body slumping over on a bed, a dark stain spreading across the floor, an ice cream cone in his hand, a shield with a star, needles in his arms, _blood_ … The harder he thought about, the more mixed-up he felt. He felt like he was on the brink of something—all he had to do was reach out and _grab_ it—

But what did it mean? How could it be real? How could he rationalize it?

It didn’t make sense.

None of this made sense.

           

 

 

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

Sophie had never traveled by bus before and now she was glad she hadn’t because it was legitimately the most boring thing she’d ever done in her whole life (discounting the fact that she was actually the victim of a kidnapping, was sitting next to a very dangerous man, and was on her way to being delivered to a villainous organization that was surely going to use her skills for bad things). She’d woken up pretty much draped across Winter, which had been extremely embarrassing. Thankfully he didn’t make a comment or even really seem to look at her, which was good because she knew her whole face was pink. Then Holly had woken up and literally would not shut up for the entire day. Sophie was beginning to want to murder this woman and this was interesting because Sophie had never had violent urges towards anybody before (not including Winter, obviously). She studied Rob a few times, when he wasn’t looking, and determined that he was a quiet, easy-going man. She had no idea how he put up with someone like Holly. Perhaps opposites really _did_ attract…

The landscape changed as they made their way through Peru. The craggy peaks of the Andes mountains turned into silhouetted shadows and shapes, eventually fading into the barest of blurs left behind them, mere pointy smudges on the horizon—always here and there but never as imperiously, or as continuously, as they had been before.

And the heat! Sophie was embarrassed to admit it to herself but the heat really was one of the most bothersome things. She’d lived such a privileged and sheltered life before this insane experience that she’d never had to live without air conditioning for even a minute. She’d never traveled anywhere where air conditioning wasn’t available. She'd hardly even traveled to warm places where air conditioning _was_ available.

And now here she was, in South America during the summertime, wearing a thick dress and a woolen sweater, sitting in a cramped bus filled with people and no air conditioning.

She combed her fingers through her limp hair, wiping her sweaty forehead and fanning the back of her neck. She heard a chortle from her left and her heart sank. _Oh, for god’s sake. LEAVE ME ALONE._ She tried to ignore her but of course, Holly refused to let herself be ignored. “You look so hot!” she said. “Why don’t you take your sweater off?”

In a way, she was right. The sweater was thick and heavy and it was definitely making things worse. But Sophie kept it on because it felt like…armor. It felt like protection, something she could shield herself with. Ihuicatl had given it to her and Sophie felt the more covered up and cocooned she was, the safer she somehow was. A stupid sentiment, really.

And not one she planned on explaining to Holly.

She smiled listlessly at the back of the seat in front of her but ignored what Holly said, half-pretending she hadn’t heard her. So naturally, Holly repeated her question louder. Sophie turned and gave Holly a tight smile. “It’s not so bad. I like having it on.”

“You look like a lobster,” Holly laughed. “Your face is so red, sweetheart. You really should take it off.”

 _And you really should mind your own business_. The mean words sprang to the tip of Sophie’s tongue and she swallowed them back with considerable difficulty. Just then the bus rolled to a stop in a larger town and to Sophie’s immense relief, Holly leaped to her feet and tugged Rob to his feet as well. They didn’t bother asking Sophie or Winter if they wanted to accompany them this time since they’d refused the first two times the bus had stopped.

South Americans were quite casual about their travel, she had noticed. They weren’t too fussy about times and schedules and hurrying to get to their destination; the driver stopped in every major town they passed to let people off and own—but he took a decent-length break himself and encouraged people on the bus to get off and get food, drinks, use the bathroom, before he returned. (There was a secondary driver who took over when the main driver needed to sleep.) People on the bus—Peruvians and tourists alike—got off to get sodas and stand around chatting amongst themselves, stretching. Little kids played outside until it was time to go again. Sophie knew their slow pace was making Winter antsy by the way he would tremble every now and then, breaking his glacial stillness, his fingers twitching in his lap, but she appreciated the slow pace. She would gladly take as long as possible before he delivered her to Hydra.

She just wished Holly wasn’t here to ruin the peace.

“Take off the sweater,” Winter ordered in a low voice.

She looked at him in surprise. “I beg your pardon?” Then she winced. Why had she made herself sound so uptight?

“You’re dying in the sweater,” he stated.

Well…he wasn’t exactly wrong. Sophie hesitated, fingers plucking absentmindedly at the buttons on the sweater, even though she felt drenched in sweat inside.

“Take it off or I’ll take it off for you,” he offered. The words sounded threatening but his tone was calm. She glanced up at him and saw absolutely nothing in his eyes and wondered for the millionth time if this man had ever been a person with a heart.

“I don’t doubt you would,” she muttered and she pulled her sweater off, folding it and clutching it to her chest like a shield. Instantly she felt cool relief, felt as if her body had gotten ten degrees lighter. The sweater had been roasting her like a turkey in the oven at Thanksgiving dinner (which was ironic because Sophie’s mother always had a gourmet turkey ordered from a fancy deli nearby and always pretended she’d made it herself and Sophie and her father had always gone along with her lie to appease her).

Eating a home-cooked roast turkey for Thanksgiving. Yet another thing she was never going to do again. She felt oddly placid at the thought. Perhaps because turkey was kind of gross.

The sun was moving downwards in the sky, though it was only five p.m. and it wasn’t due to set for quite a while. The sky had turned a lovely cornflower blue with a deep golden tint to it that signaled that the end of the day was on its way. Sophie leaned past Winter to stare at it and he shoved her back in alarm, snapping, “What are you doing?”

“Looking at the sky,” she shot back at him. “Would you relax?” She leaned forward a bit again and studied it, memorizing the way it looked. She hoped she would be able to remember it in future times. She didn’t know what Hydra had planned for her and she didn’t know if she would ever be free again. She wanted to memorize everything she saw so she could recall it in darker days. She’d done that in the horrible, dark weeks after the college thing had first happened and she’d hidden in her room, refusing to go outside.

“Why?” he asked tetchily.

She pulled back and looked at him in surprise. “Why not? It’s pretty.”

“So?” His tone indicated that its prettiness was of no importance and suddenly Sophie just felt so irritated with him.

“Haven’t you ever thought something was pretty?” she demanded. “A sunset? A flower? A—a lake or something?”

“No,” he said flatly.

“What about a person?” she demanded. “Haven’t you ever thought a person was pretty?”

He gave her a blank stare. “Why would I do that?”

“Aren’t you _human_?” she cried in frustration and his eyes narrowed, slamming a hand over her mouth and slowly raising a fingertip to his lips, indicating that she needed to keep her voice down.

She shoved his hand away and furiously whispered, “Well? Aren’t you human? Or are you a robot? Or some kind of alien?” Thor had just popped into her mind; he wasn’t human, was he? He was from outer space or something. Perhaps this man was like that—from some outer space realm where they didn’t have feelings or empathy or hearts.

“I’m not an alien,” he snapped, looking taken aback and somewhat offended. “And I’m not a robot.”

She narrowed her eyes. “So you _are_ a human?”

He stared at her, his expression unreadable.

“And if you _are_ human…you _must_ have thought something or someone was beautiful before,” she almost pleaded.

He kept staring but his eyes widened a fraction of an inch.

“Well?” she whispered.

He straightened up abruptly and turned away from her, staring solidly out the window. Sophie sighed and straightened up as well, returning to staring at the seat in front of her, feeling very weary and dejected. Well, she’d tried. He hadn’t given anything up but she’d—

“The sky is pretty.” The words were stiff and mechanical but _he’d said them._ Sophie’s ears seemed to ring in the awkward silence after that but she smiled to herself and slouched in her seat slightly. He’d said the words. He’d admitted something was pretty. And even if he was lying, he’d _said the words_ because she’d questioned his humanity—meaning he was defending his humanity in a subtle way…whether he realized it or not.

And that meant there was someone truly human in him, buried deep beneath the surface.

Well, if Sophie was heading to her own personal hell, she was going to pull that person out from his shell before she left. _This_ was why she’d stayed. _This_ was why she was almost helping him take her to Brazil. The mystery of him—of who he’d been—of who he _was_ …had almost started to overpower her fear of what was coming next. Oh, she still got aches and nausea in her stomach when she thought about what was possibly coming for her…but at this point, she wasn’t entirely sure she could walk away from Winter now. Not after realizing what she’d been slowly realizing about him for quite some time now.

The bus driver got back on the bus and honked the horn several times. The people who’d just been using this place as a rest stop filed back onto the bus, settling into their seats. A handful of new people who were departing from this stop climbed on as well, looking around for empty seats. Sophie wished one of them would take Rob and Holly’s seat but stupid Holly had left their parkas behind on the seat, asking Sophie to watch them. It had taken all of Sophie’s willpower not to “accidentally” stuff them under the seat. She didn’t understand where this spiteful streak was coming from but she didn’t entirely mind it. Perhaps one needed to be slightly spiteful now and then to stand up for themselves (even if they were only standing up for themselves in their mind).

Holly and Rob settled back into their seats and Holly regaled Sophie with a story about something amusing that had happened to them. Rob nodded along with her. Winter folded his arms and stared out his window. He wasn’t doing his part at all to act like her boyfriend but Sophie didn’t really blame him at this point. If she could have ignored Holly, she would have too.

The bus drove on through the evening and inexplicably, at some point, someone pulled out a _banjo_ and began strumming it. The Peruvians on the bus all began singing some folk song  they all knew, interspersed with claps and snaps, and Sophie listened, bewildered (where had this all come from?) but amused as well (because why not?). Winter looked stony-faced but when she whispered, “Fun, right?” to bother him, she saw his eyes roll a tiny amount and that made her feel better. It was such a human gesture. He’d gifted her with _two_ human moments today and those were priceless at the moment. She didn’t have much to cling to so she clung to those.

Four hours later, she regretted not getting off at the last stop. She hadn’t realized there wouldn’t be another stop for this long. In fact, what if they didn’t stop again till tomorrow? Neither she nor Winter had any food. She was just debating swallowing her pride and asking Holly for some of her snacks when the bus pulled into a small village and trundled down some small roads before parking in a clearing. The driver stood up and spoke in Spanish and everyone cheered. A few people grumbled.

“What did he say?” Sophie wondered aloud.

“He’s stopping for dinner,” Holly told her, “and he encourages us all to stop as well.”

Sophie felt surprised. “Is this normal?”

Holly nodded. “They’re very relaxed up here. It’s like a tourist bus, though not everyone’s a tourist, I guess. It’s supposed to be fun.” Her tone sounded slightly accusatory, as if she thought Sophie was flouting the social rules somehow.

“We should go eat,” Sophie told Winter quietly. He nodded once and they both stood up. Holly looked gleeful and said, “Come eat dinner with us!” Sophie had no real reason for saying no and Holly spoke much better Spanish than she did, so she pursed her lips but nodded, trying to look excited at the prospect. Holly wouldn’t have been so bad if she ever let someone else control the conversation—but no. It was all about her stories and her questions.

Holly led them all off the bus and they stood in the dirt clearing for a moment, stretching. Sophie tied her sweater around her waist elementary-school style and suppressed a bittersweet grin at what her fashionable mother would say if she saw Sophie now. The air was warm and honeyed, smelling of smoke and things roasting and greenery. The town seemed alive, shops and stalls lit up with lanterns, fire-sticks, and strung-up lights. Sophie understood why it was one of the stops on the tour bus; it was completely charming. She looked up at the dark night sky, hoping to see some stars, but there were too many clouds tonight.

Holly explained to them that Latin American people ate dinner very late which was why they were stopping for dinner around nine-thirty p.m. Sophie tried to ask questions as they followed Holly wherever she was leading them but the woman wouldn’t let her get a word in edgewise. At one point, Sophie stopped and said, “Oh no…”

“What is it?” Holly’s head snapped up, detecting a possible problem like a bloodhound.

“We—” Sophie glanced uneasily at Winter, who was looking at her with questioning eyes, but she didn’t see how she could dance around the topic in any way. “We don’t have that much money…” She’d found a money pouch filled with money in her sweater pocket during the wagon ride and had silently thanked Ihuicatl with all her heart. However, she didn’t think it was enough to spend on food. They had to keep it for the bus ride. “We—um, it was stolen,” she explained, seeing Holly’s curious look. “By some pick-pockets.”

“And you didn’t have any backup cash?” Holly asked incredulously.

Sophie shrugged and tried to look young and silly. It wasn’t that hard. “Our first time traveling out of country so…” She giggled. “We didn’t plan things very well.”

“I’ll say,” Holly said. She thought for a moment. “Listen, it’s okay. We’ll pay for you.”

“What?” Sophie said. “No, no we couldn’t p—”

“Nonsense,” Holly scoffed. “Of course we can.” Her smiled gleamed in the darkness. “It’s so _nice_ to help people out, isn’t it?” And there it was—the real reason why Holly was helping them. Sophie had figured it out long ago. She was the nosy, interfering type who liked to mother and smother and “help” people so she could feel like a saint. And normally Sophie would have felt bad about using her but she was starving and figured it was the least Holly could do, after boring their ears off with her endless stories.

They found a small sit-down restaurant filled with locals and one of the other tourist families. It was a tiny, cramped place that bore no pretensions: no decorations, no music, not even a bathroom in sight. But the place smelled good and Holly was paying so Sophie wasn’t going to complain. She glanced at Rob out of the corner of her eye to see what he thought about his girlfriend tossing their money about so freely but he seemed unconcerned.

Sophie ordered some seafood dish that was a mix of seafood, noodles, and spices tossed in a buttery sauce. It was pretty delicious once she got over the shock of seeing crab claws in her bowl. Trying to stop Holly’s chatter, Sophie turned to Rob and tried to strike up a conversation with him. But talking to him…was bizarre. He was a pleasant enough man and responded to all of her questions politely and properly…yet he never offered _more_. She would ask what he liked best about what he’d seen in Peru, he would respond thoughtfully—and that was it. He wouldn’t ask her what _she_ liked best about Peru or continue the conversation in any way. After Holly’s nosiness, his lack of interest was a bit jarring. He gave her a funny feeling, though he smiled nicely and talked normally. He felt a bit…empty. Or boring.

Or perhaps he just paled in comparison to his over-the-top girlfriend and Sophie was judging him unfairly. Yes, that was probably it.

Winter contributed nothing to the conversation, as she’d expected. She’d stomped on his foot once but she didn’t think he felt it through his thick combat boots. He hadn’t even eaten that much, had just folded his arms and looked bored, looking around the restaurant. His eyes had rested on Rob a few times and Rob had always looked away. Sophie didn’t exactly blame him; the Winter Soldier staring directly at you was an intense thing, even if you didn’t know the truth about who he was.

At the end of the meal, Sophie had to use the bathroom. She got Holly to ask the one server where it was and he told her that there was no bathroom in the building—but there was one lone outhouse beyond the restaurant, out back.

Sophie nodded and stood up, promising them (while keeping her eyes locked on Winter so he knew who she was really talking to) that she’d be right back. The food had been good but she’d drunk way too much lukewarm water and now felt uncomfortably bloated. She hoped she wouldn’t get sick from eating and drinking foreign food and water but there was nothing she could do about it _now_.

The outhouse was a tiny, skinny wooden shack that looked like it could barely hold even once person. It was situated about twenty yards behind the restaurant, swathed in darkness, and it had taken her a full five minutes to even _find_ it. _I can’t believe no one’s put a lamp next to it_ , she grumpily thought to herself. _What if it was an emergency? I’d have peed myself by now._ The walk through the dark should have been creepy but it felt peaceful, stepping away from the village and Holly’s babble.

The outhouse had a tiny, dim light inside that flickered dully while flies buzzed around it. The whole place smelled…well, disgusting. Sophie realized that the “toilet” was actually one of those ground toilets, surrounded by cement, a pipe leading to who knew where. She took a deep breath, regretted her decision immensely when she inhaled the smell of the outhouse, hiked up her dress, yanked down her tights, and did her business. When she was done, she covered the hole back up with the large wooden board that had rested on top of it before and crouched, slowly washing her hands in the tiny spigot sticking out of the ground next to the toilet. The water was warm and smelled slightly tinny.

She wiped her hands on her dress and turned, opening the door.

“WHOA!” She took a half-step back in alarm, her hand flying to her chest. Rob stood directly in front of the outhouse door, blocking her path completely. “Rob!” she said breathlessly, her heart still pounding from the sudden fright. “You—you scared me!”

She could barely see his features in the darkness but she saw him smile. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I just wanted to use the bathroom and I was waiting—”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Sophie said, feeling a bit claustrophobic trapped in the bathroom. She felt uneasy, standing here and chatting. “Sorry, let me just squeeze past you real quick—”

“Are you sure?”

His voice was so quiet that Sophie didn’t even really hear it. “What?”

“Are you sure?” he repeated, slightly louder. “That you want to go back?”

Sophie’s heart began to beat uncomfortably again and her palms suddenly felt sweaty. She had a very, very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach but she forced herself to remain calm. It was what children did when they were scared at night: _If you can’t see the monster, then it can’t see you either—or hurt you_. If she acted normally, hopefully she could force this encounter go normally. “What?” she repeated, trying to keep her voice normal, even though she could feel the shakiness beneath it.

“I’ve noticed you, you know,” he said, taking a step further into the outhouse, forcing Sophie to step back. “And I’ve noticed _you_ staring at me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, trying to sound lightly indignant, as if this were all some kind of funny joke. “I haven’t been staring at you.”

“Yes, you have!” he snarled suddenly, frightening Sophie into freezing. He sighed. “I’m sorry…my temper’s kind of on edge. Holly won’t shut the hell up, but what else is new with that woman?” He took another step and Sophie took a hasty step back. Her back hit the wall.

There was nowhere further to run.

“I’ve noticed you looking at me,” he repeated. “And I admit…I like it. You’re really pretty, you know that? You’re kind of pale and sad-looking but it’s pretty cute on you.” He laughed to himself and squeezed in further, closing the outhouse door behind him.

“Rob—” Sophie’s breaths came out in choppy waves. “I swear to god—I will scream—” Her voice barely rose above a whisper as she held back half-formed sobs. Her stomach was churning sickeningly. How was this happening to her? Did she have the word VICTIM printed all over her body? Why did everyone have to try and violate her? If she survived this, she was going to get a gun license and then buy a machine gun and keep it with her at all times.

“Oh yeah?” he murmured. “And who’s going to hear you? Your silent _boyfriend_? Please.” He snickered. “We all know that’s a lie. That dude isn’t your boyfriend and if he is, he’s a pretty shitty one. He hasn’t looked at you once this whole time. We’re far from the restaurant.”

“Don’t do this to Holly,” Sophie said, her voice high-pitched and unnatural-sounding. “She—she—loves—”

“Don’t talk about Holly!” he spat. “Dumb bitch. Always yapping, yapping, never shutting the goddamn hell up, thinking I care about her opinions. She’s got money and she’s obsessed with me and so whatever, I put up with her. But she’s not even that hot! Not like you, Sophie,” he added softly and Sophie felt a wave of nausea threaten to take her out. “You’re unbelievable. I love that haunted orphan look you’ve got, like you’re just waiting for someone to rescue you.”

Sophie opened her mouth to scream just as Rob slammed his mouth onto hers. She fell sideways with a crash, her leg twisting painfully beneath her, and let out a strangled shriek before he covered her mouth with his again, forcefully kissing her so hard it hurt. She tried to rake her nails across his face, jam her leg up into his stomach, _anything_ , but he grabbed her wrists painfully and twisted them. It felt like her arms had erupted in flames, and tears of pain and shock sprang to her eyes.

“Get—off—of me!” she screamed, her fear and anger nearly blinding her. How dare he— _how dare he_ put his disgusting hands on her? She bit his face _hard_ and he let out a strangled yell and then slammed into her even more forcefully, breathing hard and laughing to himself, “You really are something, you know that?” before kissing her again, his hands ripping at her sweater and sliding up and down her body. She turned her head to the side and tried her best to push him off of her but his weight was too much and she slipped sideways even further, her shoulder slamming into a wall. The whole outhouse seemed to shudder as he pressed down on her throat with his hand and kissed her, biting her lip, biting her _neck_ —

She let out a strangled, spluttering sound, incoherent due to the pressure on her windpipe, and saw her vision start to go fuzzy around the edges as he tried to slide his right hand up her dress, grabbing the waistband of her tights—

 _NOOOOOO!_ She didn’t know if she screamed it in her mind or out loud but all she knew was that it tore out of her with a furious force and she slammed her head forward as hard as she could. Their foreheads collided and he fell backwards, hitting a wall, with a strangled yell. She staggered to her feet, trembling and panting, and groped along the wall, frantically feeling for the door—there it was! Right behind her!

Before she could undo the deadbolt and wrench it open, he threw himself at her again, grabbing her face with his hands and kissing her forcefully, wrenching a strangled shriek out of her—

And then the door behind her simply vanished and she fell backwards. One minute it was there, a solid wall that was keeping her trapped in here with Rob, and the next minute it was gone. She only fell for a nanosecond before she fell into someone’s arms, her legs giving way and almost collapsing to the ground. She staggered into a semi-upright position and clutched at whoever had saved her, looking up to see Winter.

A wave of relief swept through Sophie, so strong that she felt for a moment she might pass out. “Winter— _Winter_ —” she half-whispered, half-sobbed, her words coming out twisted through her choked up throat, almost weeping with relief, clinging to him. “H-he—he tried to—he was going to—”

But what Rob was going to do, Sophie never got to say because Winter flung her away from him and strode into the outhouse. It didn’t really matter since they both knew what Rob had planned to do to her. She hit the ground hard and scrambled backwards, putting herself well out of harm’s way, and watched with half-fascination, half-horror as he dragged Rob out by his collar and threw him violently to the ground. Rob landed a few feet away from Sophie and she scrambled backwards even further, terrified of him touching her again. She clambered backward onto a piece of wood and looked down, realizing she had climbed onto the outhouse door. Winter had ripped the entire door off its hinges and flung it aside.

“Wait—you got the wrong idea,” Rob rasped before Winter got to work.

Sophie had never had a taste for violence (unless it was being done by the hero against the villain in a fantasy book) but she found she couldn’t look away now. She was transfixed. Partly because she wanted to see Rob get what he deserved but also because it was just…mesmerizing. The way he moved. Like an enormous jaguar, powerful and lithe.

She knew he went easy on Rob because he didn’t _kill_ Rob. But he thoroughly beat him up, tossing him physically a few times, kicking him, punching him repeatedly, sending him staggering this way and that. He ended up kneeling over Rob’s chest, punching him repeatedly in the face and neck and stomach until Rob could only let out whimpering moans in protest. Sophie had heard several cracks during the fight (if something this one-sided could be called a fight…more like an assault—except it was justified) and knew he’d broken a few bones.

She heard what he said at the end, too. He knelt over Rob’s faintly-stirring body, leaned in close, and harshly whispered, “If you _ever_ so much as look at her again—you won’t live to tell the story next time. And you’ll tell everyone some locals jumped you and did this—or else I will find you and rip your trachea out and make you _eat it_.” Then he punched Rob one more time and Sophie thought she heard another snap.

She sat paralyzed, trembling, staring at Rob’s limp silhouette in the darkness. A wave of revulsion crawled over her as she thought about what he’d tried to do to her and she had to fight down the urge to throw up. Her entire body felt icy-cold and white-hot all at once and she knew her breathing was raspy and choppy, daggering in and out of her, but she didn’t know how to stop it. She felt numb and raw all at once. Winter knelt by her and looked at her as if to gauge what she would do next and she wildly grabbed the front of his shirt, stammering, “H-he—he was going to—he tried to—oh m-my…” She stifled a whimper as her eyes filled with horrible tears.

“I know,” Winter whispered and he moved closer to her, blocking her view of Rob.

“He—he _touched_ me,” she said, her voice high-pitched and trembling. “H-he—he put his hands up m-my dress—he kissed me—” She seemed to be locked in place, still trapped in the moment, unable to do anything but vocalize what had been done to her, what he’d tried to do to her—

“I know,” Winter repeated and in her hazy, ringing ears, she thought she heard a note of gentleness in his voice. But she could have been wrong. She was probably wrong. She was wrong about everyone and everything and really, why did she trust people? When she clearly understood nothing about them and—

“Sophie.” He gripped her face with his hands, looking serious, his face swimming in her wet vision. “Breathe.”

_He used my name._

She’d never heard him use her name before.

_Wait, am I not breathing?_

She realized she wasn’t—she was gasping for air, shaking, blinking blurry tears out of her eyes. Heart hammering. A panic attack. She hadn’t had one in quite some time.

It was his usage of her name that calmed her down more than anything else. How long had it been since someone had used her name like this? Quietly. Normally. As if they knew her. She focused on her own name and tried to regulate her breathing with it. _So-phie. So-phie. So-phie._ In-out. In-out. In-out.

Eventually she calmed down, her breathing returning to normal, her heart losing its thundering speed. Everything was still trembling and a cool sheen of sweat covered her entire body but she felt…semi-okay. His presence next to her felt solid. Dependable. Deadly, but in her defense. He was still gripping her face, trying to hold her steady.

Oddly enough, she realize she felt _safe_ with him.

Huh. What a funny thing.

And then all of a sudden her dinner came back up in a rush. She wrenched herself away from him and hunched over on her hands and knees, vomiting up everything she’d eaten earlier, tears streaming out of her eyes. She felt her arms wobbling beneath her as she tried to support herself and was vaguely away of his hands—one warm, one cool—holding her hair away from her face as she threw up. When she was done, she wiped a shaky hand across her mouth and then collapsed.

* * *

 

His heart felt like it was racing. That was a very strange thing. His heart didn’t usually pick up speed; it stayed pretty well-regulated mostly. It was a part of his enhancement. His heart only picked up speed when he needed that rare, sudden burst of adrenaline to get the job done. Otherwise, he’d learned to control it so it stayed calm.

But it felt like it was racing tonight.

He’d _known_ there was something off about that Rob character. Had sensed it due to decades of instinct and training. He didn’t know if it was the oddly empty look in the man’s eyes or his bland smile, but something had whispered in his mind that this man was to be watched.

And tonight…he’d almost failed. He’d almost failed her. Failed to keep the mission safe. The Rob character had almost gotten her and the Winter Soldier could have killed himself for being so stupidly careless, for not realizing _earlier_ how much trouble she was in.

He hadn’t noticed at first. She’d been gone a while but he figured she needed some privacy after that odd meal they’d had. The food hadn’t looked like it had agreed with her. And then Rob had excused himself as well, saying he needed to use the bathroom or he was going to burst. And he had been _so stupid_ , he’d been taken in by the man’s casual manner and had actually wasted precious minutes staring off into space before his spine had tingled, letting him know something was wrong. Rob had been gone a while and the girl had definitely been gone too long; where was the girl?

And then he had known.

He knew he had to keep the mission safe from others. This was why he was protecting her. _He_ was allowed to use force with her because he knew his limits; Hydra had allowed him this. But others were definitely not allowed near her. She was too valuable to Hydra, apparently, and if anyone else damaged her, he would have failed in his mission. He wasn’t about to let that happen, especially after all that had happened for him to make it this far. So that was why he was angry about what Rob had done. He knew that.

What he couldn’t explain was the almost terrifying wave of white-hot rage that had risen up in him like a snake as he had ripped the outhouse door of its hinges and seen the last glimpses of Rob _all over_ the girl, his hands, his mouth, touching every bit of her that he could. The Winter Soldier sternly told himself it was for the mission’s well-being that he’d reacted so violently—

But if he was going to be…

Well. _Honest_. He knew there was something else.

He just didn’t know how to name it or explain it.

All he knew was that seeing Rob all over her, her desperately trying to get away from the man, hearing her ragged sobs as she fell against him for safety—it had kindled his rage like no other. He hadn’t felt this kind of fury since the early days after kidnapping her, when she’d spoken back to him—and truly, even _that_ anger hadn’t been like this. Here…now…he’d wanted to rip this man from limb to limb for what he’d done.

And he’d come _so close_ to doing so.

Except he’d realized that the girl was watching, frozen and horrified, and realized she was the bigger priority. And leaving a body behind was only going to make their situation more difficult.

She’d fallen against him, clutched at his chest, tears flowing down her face and then she’d started having trouble breathing. He’d panicked, not sure on what to do to calm her down, and it had slipped out without even thinking about it: her name.

Sophie.

 _Sophie_.

He’d never said it out loud before.

In fact…he’d never even consciously thought it before.

But there it came—and he felt strange, shaken, as if something had drastically changed between them because he’d said her name. Was it the fact that he’d acknowledged her humanity? That she was a human being with a name? A flesh-and-blood person with a name and a history and likes and dislikes?

Someone who deserved…

 _Better than this_ , a strange voice in his mind whispered.

He shook it away angrily.

Then she’d thrown up and he’d held her hair away from her face, feeling very strange and out-of-body as he did so, and then she’d collapsed. He picked her up in his arms, cradling her. She felt as light as a feather to him. He vaguely thought about the fact that he’d never held her like this before; he usually threw her over his shoulder quite roughly as if she was a sack of flour. He walked back to the bus, which was silent and empty, and settled in a seat far away from Holly and Rob’s, laying the girl on the seat so she curled up into a ball, her head resting on his lap. Normally he would have been very uncomfortable with this but tonight, he couldn’t even bring himself to care. He stared moodily out the window, thinking about everything and nothing all at once, checking a few times to make sure the girl—

 _Sophie_ —

—was still breathing. In the dim light, he could see her mouth was swollen, her neck and cheeks bruised. He suspected her arms and stomach and legs would have bruises on them, too. She looked sticky and beaten up, her dark hair a mess. He swallowed down another swell of curious anger.

Half an hour later he heard the screams he’d known were coming since the moment he stepped onto the bus. And then he waited. Sure enough, twenty minutes later Holly stormed onto the bus, two men carrying Rob with them behind her, and made her way directly to his seat, shrieking incoherently at him. He stared calmly at her while the rest of the passengers began boarding the bus, curious and shocked at this bit of after-dinner drama they hadn’t anticipated, staring in horror at Rob (who looked near-dead after his beating). And he’d _held back_ as he’d beaten him. He wished he hadn’t had to.

It took him a moment to realize Holly was screaming at him. “YOU DID THIS!” she was screaming. “YOU WERE OUT THERE WITH HIM! YOU AND THAT FREAK, THAT UNGRATEFUL BRAT, I KNEW YOU TWO WERE TROUBLE—”

“I’ve been here this whole time,” he said with awful coldness and he saw her flinch at his icy tone.

She turned purple with rage, screaming, “NO, YOU WEREN’T, YOU BASTARD! YOU ATE DINNER WITH US!”

“Prove it,” he said carelessly.

“I WILL!” she screamed.

The bus driver got on the bus, looking alarmed, and began demanding in Spanish as to what the hell was going on. Or at least that was what the Winter Soldier guessed he was saying. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the portly man meant.

Holly began hysterically shrieking in Spanish, pointing dramatically at the seat where Rob was laying and moaning, and then at him and the girl, clearly blaming him for Rob’s assault. He watched with careful, narrowed eyes, waiting to see what happened next. If they believed her and tried to kick him off the bus, he could vanish into the night with Sophie—or he could kill everyone on this bus and take off with it. He was more inclined to do the latter. He was nearing the end of his patience by now.

“She’s lying!” a bald man suddenly shouted, popping up from one of the seats near the front. The Winter Soldier felt slightly shocked; he hadn’t even realized the man was on the bus with them. “The soldier’s been here the entire time with his girlfriend.” He repeated the same thing in Spanish at the bus driver, who now looked extremely bewildered and upset by this perplexing drama.

He had no idea why this random bald man was defending him when he didn’t even know him but the bald man nodded respectfully at him and after a pause, he nodded tersely back at the man, slightly unsure as to what he was doing. Still—the man had helped his story. So.

“THIS IS _UNBELIEVABLE_!” Holly screamed at the top of her lungs. “Who’s believing this shit? WHO’S BELIEVING IT?”

“Holly,” rose up Rob’s croaking groan and everyone froze, staring at his seat. “Hollyyyyy…”

“Yes, Rob!” she rushed over to his seat and bent over him. “I’m here, honey! I’m here! Tell them what happened, baby! Tell them Will jumped you!”

Who the hell was Will? It took him a good moment to remember the girl’s idiotic code name for him. _Will_. Such garbage.

“It…wasn’t…him,” came Rob’s slurred moan. “Buncha…boys…”      

Holly’s face blanched with shock. “But—b-but—but Rob! Honey! How…are… What are you _saying_ , Rob? It has to be them! They—they didn’t even— Tell them, Rob!” she implored, a hard edge to her voice. “TELL THEM!”

“Boysss,” Rob called, slurring through his broken teeth and possible concussion.

Actually, he definitely had a concussion.

“See?” the Winter Soldier asked lazily, almost enjoying her humiliation. Wretched woman. This was the best punishment he could have given her, glutton for attention that she was.

The bus driver shouted something in Spanish, throwing his hands up in exasperation, and the bald man said something back to him in Spanish. Then the driver replied, clearly frustrated, and clambered into the driver’s seat, starting up the engine. The Winter Soldier looked at the bald man with cool detachment, waiting for an explanation, and the man eagerly said, “The driver was asking what the hell was going on, so I explained what that dude said—it was a bunch of boys who beat him up—and the driver said that unless someone wanted to get off and go to the police _right now_ , he was leaving. He doesn’t need this shit on his bus. End of story.”

He nodded and turned away from the bald man’s curious gaze. Holly sat in the first seat behind the driver with Rob, bending over him and crooning softly. The rest of the passengers filed in over the next twenty minutes, speaking and gossiping in hushed voices about the strange event that had just taken place, the story making its rounds throughout the whole tour bus. He knew he and the girl would be the center of attention in the coming days and hoped they reached their destination soon. He didn’t want to be in the limelight. He wasn’t made for it, wasn’t trained for it. He was made for the shadows.

And the shadows existed for him.

He looked down at the girl as the lights on the bus dimmed, the engine roared and rumbled, and the bus slowly pulled out of the disastrous town.

She slept on him through the entire night.

           

           

           

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So what did you guys think about this sudden turn of events, and the chapter? Do let me know! :)


	18. Chapter 18

Sophie woke alone and sore. She blinked up at the ceiling of the bus and noticed that the bus was silent and still. She was all alone—she could sense it. Her entire body hurt as if she’d gone through an extreme workout, which was almost funny because Sophie wasn’t the working-out type. She was a stay-indoors-reading type. Her lips and cheeks hurt and there was a sharp, stinging pain in the back of her calves. Her right leg burned and she could feel sharp, aching pains in her neck, on her hipbones, on her waist on the left side, in her wrists…

She slowly sat up and squinted around the bus, rubbing her eyes. Not a single person was on the bus and golden sunshine flooded in through the windows on the left side, giving the entire bus a strange angelic look. She wondered for a moment if she’d been murdered by Rob and gone to heaven—but then shook her head. The idea that heaven wasn’t a library or bookstore was preposterous.

She leaned back in her seat and exhaled slowly, gently combing her fingers through her hair and smoothing it away from her face, the memories of last night rushing at her. Rob trapping her in the outhouse. Rob attacking her. Kissing her. Biting her. Twisting her wrists. Running his hands up and down her stomach and waist and hips. Trying to get his hands under her dress. Knocking her into the walls.

Her stomach flipped nauseously and she realized she was trembling as she dwelled in the terrible memories. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on the good: Winter saving her.

Yes, the words felt odd to her. _Winter…saved me_. But it was true—he had. If it hadn’t been for him, she didn’t know what would have happened next.

 _Yes, you do_. A shiver ran down her spine. She knew very well what would have happened next. Rob would have had his way with her and then quite possibly left her for dead. She wasn’t sure what his full plan had been. But the thought that he’d been _planning_ it…that all those hours they’d sat on the bus a mere few feet from each other, he’d been thinking about her and planning what he was going to do—

Her stomach churned and she closed her eyes and inhaled very slowly. _Think about the good, Sophie. Think about Winter saving you._ She knew that Winter had probably only saved her because of “the mission”—but she still couldn’t help but feel immensely grateful towards him. Whatever his reason had been, he’d done it. He’d come for her. He’d saved her. And what was more…he had comforted her. It had been brief and it had been meager, compared to what normal people might have done, but he had held her face. Had said, “I know,” when she tried to brokenly explain. Had held her hair back from her face when she’d thrown up.

He had said her name for the first time ever.

She slowly stood up and stretched, gingerly checking to see how she felt. She felt sore but altogether not too horrible. It was her emotions that felt more shaken up right now. She made her way to the front of the bus and checked her reflection in the rear view mirror. She had to hold back a gasp when she saw what she looked like. Her lips were swollen and slightly bruised. Her cheek had a bruise. And her neck had bruises—some that looked disgustingly like love bites and one that very clearly resembled a hand print where Rob had grabbed her neck in a stranglehold.

The bus doors were open, letting warm air blow in, and she climbed down from the steps and stood in the bright sunshine, squinting and looking around. _Where did everyone go_? Someone cleared their throat to her right and she jumped, whirling in panic. Winter leaned against the bus, arms folded, staring at her.

“Oh,” she said, pressing a hand to her racing heart. “It’s just you. I thought…” Her voice trailed off under his scrutinizing gaze. “What?” she said self-consciously. “ _What_?” she repeated as he walked towards her and stopped in front of her. He raised his hand and she flinched instinctively, half throwing her arm up to deflect a blow…a blow that never came. She peeked up at him after a moment and slowly lowered her arm. His hand was still raised. He waited for her to lower her arm and then he gripped her chin and forced her head up, tilting it this way and that, examining her face.

“Not bad,” he murmured.

Sophie tried to step out of his gasp. It tightened for one nanosecond and then he let go of her. “I look awful,” she said.

“They’ll fade,” he said unconcernedly.

His flippancy felt hurtful for some reason but she had to remind herself that this was just how he was—unemotional and distant and…blasé. Things didn’t seem to really affect him.

 _Except he was affected last night_ , a voice in her mind reminded her. _Don’t tell me you missed the expression on his face when he saved you._ She hadn’t; his expression had been downright terrifying, full of unadulterated fury. So it seemed some things did affect him.

“Thank you for last night,” she muttered, looking down at her feet. He didn’t respond and she looked up at him; he was staring away from her into the distance, squinting slightly. “Thank you,” she repeated a little more loudly.

“I heard you.”

“Oh. Um…okay. Well…I just wanted to say that. Because if you hadn’t saved me…” She swallowed and her fingers floated to the bruises on her neck. “He would have—” Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. Her throat felt scratchy and rough and she had a feeling it was due to being almost strangled. “He would have—”

“I know what he would have done,” Winter said slowly.

“Where—um, what happened to him?” she asked, looking around as if he might pop up right next to her suddenly. She half-hoped he’d been left behind for dead. It wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it, the disgusting scumbag.

“He got back on the bus with the woman,” he said casually, seemingly unaware of the fear these words caused Sophie.

“He—he got back on the _bus_?” she asked, her voice thin and high-pitched. Her body suddenly felt cold. “He was okay to get back on the bus _with_ us?”

Winter looked at her and quietly said, “No. He was carried on. And he’s gone now. He and the woman left on this stop. She took him to a hospital.” He shrugged, clearly unconcerned and uncaring over what would happen next to Rob.

“Good,” Sophie said fiercely, surprising herself with the fury in her own voice. “I hope he _dies_!”

Winter was silent for a long moment and then: “I hope so too.” His voice was low, flat.

She blinked in surprise at him and waited for him to continue but apparently that was all he was going to say for now. She leaned against the bus next to him, wishing she was a little taller. The top of her head only reached slightly past his shoulders. Less people would mess with her if she was taller, she bet. Tall people just had this confident look to them, as if they could run a marathon _and_ a company at the same time. Small people like her looked stupid and weak. _She_ looked stupid and weak, apparently.

She felt stupid and weak.

How could she not have known what Rob wanted?

How could she not have been able to fight him off?

How could she have let herself get dragged into this mess in the first place?

Her knees buckled and she hit the ground, struggling to breathe, on all fours. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to suck air into her rattling lungs, trying to calm the disgust and anger that was smothering her insides. She felt Winter kneel next to her but instead of being nice to her like he’d been last night, he grabbed her arm—his entire hand encircled her upper arm completely—and yanked her to her feet, slamming her against the bus. She gasped and he stood in front of her, caging her with his arms, blocking her view of the small town in front of her.

“You need to get it together,” he said in a low, firm voice.

“I—I can’t,” she gasped.

“You can and you _will_ ,” he snarled.

“How?” she asked, her voice shaking. “ _How_? When I know what he wanted—when he could have so easily—”

“But. He. _Didn’t_.”

“BUT HE COULD HAVE!” she shouted. “You don’t understand! You don’t understand what it feels like, to be that weak, to be the victim—” She broke off, embarrassed at her admission. _It feels…disgusting. And ugly. And shameful. It feels like I can’t take care of myself. That I’m not worth anything._

A strange, hazy expression came across his face and he took a step back, looking strangely confused for a moment, as if something about her words didn’t make sense. She watched him, half-scared, and saw his dark eyebrows draw together in a straight line, as if he was thinking hard about something. She could tell he wasn’t going to be talking to her anytime soon so she turned to head back up onto the bus.

She took a step up and he suddenly grabbed her arm, pulling her back around so hard she let out a startled yelp. “Whoa! What?”

He was standing very close to her, his hand clenched tightly around her upper arm, and he stared at her, looking extremely frustrated, as if he wanted to say something—but couldn’t get the words out. Her mouth felt dry as she stared up at him, waiting to hear what he wanted to say. He looked troubled and his eyes darted to the side, as if he couldn’t think of what he was trying to get out. “What is it?” she whispered, hoping it was something new that would give her insight as to who he was.

“Just…nothing.” He let get of her arm and backed away, frowning to himself, his expression clearly saying, _Now why did I do that_?

Sophie didn’t know if it was a good sign or a bad sign that he was losing control over his own actions. On one hand, she wanted him to be more than the robotic exterior he always showed. On the other hand, she didn’t want him to lose control and get even _more_ psychotic.

Her stomach was grumbling slightly because she hadn’t had food since…well, almost over 24 hours ago. She’d thrown up the last meal she’d had. She turned around and headed towards the town, not caring what he thought. She thought he would let her go alone but no, halfway there she noticed his shadow trailing near hers. He had followed her silently, like a stalking wolf.

 _I am not prey_. She clenched her fists and marched resolutely on. The town was small, dusty, and only had a few stalls and shacks selling food to the gaggle of bus people who sat around fanning themselves. She saw quite a few people look at her and she wondered if it was the bruises or the drama Holly had surely caused when she’d been out like a light. She shied back instinctively at first, recoiling from attention as she’d done for half her life now.

 _But why_? she suddenly thought. _I survived, didn’t I? Yeah, Winter saved me—but I survived. I didn’t ask to get attacked. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve survived_ three  _attacks, actually._ She hadn’t forgotten the man on the boat to Cuba.

She held her head a little higher as she purchased some chips and water bottles from a stall. She turned and saw Winter leaning silently against a building across the dusty street, staring at her, not even shading his eyes from the glare of the sun. She crossed the street and thrust a water bottle in his direction. “For you.” Her tone came out slightly more aggressive than she’d intended and she amended, “If you want it.”

He silently took the bottle. Didn’t thank her. But he _took it_ and that was all Sophie saw. She and him were making progress, strange partners that they were in this twisted business.

The bus honked twice loudly and the bunches of bus travelers began making their way back to the bus, some straggling behind. The people who’d been with them since the start now looked as listless as they probably felt. The enthusiastic air from the first day had dissipated. Everyone looked tired and Sophie wondered why they had chosen to travel this way if Brazil had been their destination all along.

“Excuse me,” she quietly asked someone who she’d seen speaking English earlier as they walked. She could feel Winter slightly behind her.

The woman looked at her and smiled hesitantly. “Yes?”

“Do you know how long till we get to Brazil?”

The woman turned and asked her husband. He looked at his iPhone and then scratched his head and said, “We should be reaching the border by…sometime late tonight or early tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you.” Sophie smiled shyly and moved away from the woman to indicate that she wasn’t going to ask anymore questions. But just before she got on the bus, the woman suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her aside. “Wha—” Sophie started, taken aback.

“Listen,” the woman said in a hushed, urgent voice, her eyes darting behind Sophie for a second. “If you need help, _let us know_.”

Sophie stared at her, bewildered. Did this woman know she’d been kidnapped? Had she somehow recognized her? “What?” she whispered.

“If you’re being hurt,” the woman whispered, “let us know and we’ll help you escape with us. You seem like a sweet little thing.”

_Oh god—THEY THINK WINTER IS ABUSING ME._

Which…in a sense…he had done. But Sophie now saw that his violence wasn’t planned out nor enjoyed by him, and it seemed to be his only way of achieving utmost control—which quickly seemed to be slipping from his grasp as time went on.

“Um, thank you. But I’ll be fine.” She smiled weakly and darted onto the bus, her face burning. Great. So now she obviously looked pathetic as well as feeling pathetic. She settled into her seat and felt Winter’s burning stare.

“What did that woman mean?” he asked in a low voice.

Of course he’d been listening. He seemed to have supersonic hearing in addition to speed and strength. She sighed and twiddled with a lock of her hair. “Um…she thought…that you were abusing me.”

He frowned.

“Because you’re pretending to be my boyfriend, remember?” she reminded him. “And I have all these bruises.” He was still frowning. She wasn’t entirely sure if he was making the connections, which was odd because normally his mind seemed to run at hyper-speed, thinking of everything before he needed to. “Domestic violence is pretty prevalent in society,” she said cautiously. _Am I seriously about to give the Winter Soldier a lesson on social justice_? She suddenly had to fight down a wave of hysterical giggles.

He nodded once and then turned and stared at the seat in front of him, lips slightly pursed as if he were lost in thought. Sophie subconsciously adopted the same pose and suddenly, before she knew what was happening, he’d stood up, yanked Sophie to the window seat, squeezed past her, and sat down in the aisle seat. “Why did you do that?” she demanded. Her underarms prickled uncomfortable with sweat and nerves. She didn’t really like sitting in the window seat on a _normal_ day—and now she was being guarded by Winter. It made her feel trapped. Well, more trapped than she already was.

“People are getting nosy,” was his only answer. It didn’t really make sense with what she’d asked him but okay.

She slowly ate the chips, wincing at every crunch (why did chips always sound so obnoxiously loud when _she_ ate them?), and swigged down half the water bottle. She felt the usual dull headache that afflicted her in the late afternoon, which was when she normally had a nice cup of tea with a good book. _At least I’m kicking my caffeine habit_ , she thought, trying to cheer herself up. _I won’t have an addiction anymore_. Except it didn’t really feel that way because all she could do was think longingly of hot, milky tea (done properly the English way; none of this herbal tea nonsense) with one of her favorite books, _Rebecca_ by Daphne du Maurier. What she wouldn’t have given to get lost in that deliciously gothic, romantic world right now…

It occurred to Sophie that if she survived this ordeal, she could probably write a fictional adventure novel based on her experiences.

They sat in silence for seven hours as the bus roared on, passing teeny-tiny villages, fields, some jungle-y bits, shadowy mountains in the far distance. Sophie had been here long enough that the scenery had started to seem normal but she still loved looking out at it. She tried to commit everything she saw to memory for future purposes. She glanced at Winter and saw that he was staring straight ahead, his face looking slightly sullen. “You could look out the window, you know,” she suggested.

The look he gave her was one of utmost disgust and derision.

“Alright,” she muttered. “Never mind. It was just an idea. Jeez.”

The bus stopped in the evening as usual. Winter stood up but something horrible suddenly occurred to Sophie and she grabbed his arm and yanked him down. He was so surprised that he let her. _Wait_ , she mouthed to him. They sat silently until every last person had left the bus, the woman who’d offered her help earlier giving her a worried look as she filed past them. Sophie ducked her head and avoided her gaze.

“What?” Winter asked quietly.

“Passports,” she hissed. “ _Visas_! We don’t have anything to cross the border!”

He stiffened. Clearly he hadn’t considered this matter either; and why should he have? His plan had meant to take them straight to Brazil in their private plane, obviously undetected by any airspace control through whatever tricks he had up his sleeve. She knew he hadn’t thought they'd be crossing by land.

“You don’t have a passport or anything, do you?” she asked dubiously. He shook his head. She looked at him, suddenly suspicious. “Do you have any ID?” she asked. “Are you even an American citizen? What country are you from?” His accent was American but didn’t seem to belong to any specific region.

He blinked once and then his eyes narrowed at her. She got the message loud and clear: he didn’t appreciate these nosy questions and he wasn’t going to answer them.

“And you don’t have a passport or anything for me,” she guessed. His lips tightened. _Bingo_. “So what now?” she asked. “They’re going to check everyone at the checkpoint on the border. Even _I_ know that. And we won’t be able to slip away because I’m pretty sure they’re really strict about it due to drug cartels.” She’d done a report on it in college. “They have huge floodlights and stuff, I think.”

He sat silently for a long time—so long, in fact, that Sophie wondered if he’d even heard her. But just as she opened her mouth to repeat herself, he said, “The baggage hold.”

What? She stared at him, puzzling over his words. Then it registered. “No,” she gasped. “ _No_ way!”

“Yes,” he said grimly.

“NO! Are you crazy?” she hissed. “They check that, too! Probably, I mean! And if we get caught, we’ll look guilty for sure!”

“Then I’ll kill them,” he said easily.

Why was his last (and sometimes first) solution always to murder people? She understood by now that he was a ruthless assassin—or at least a ruthless _agent_ —for this Hydra group, but honestly, wasn’t leaving a trail of bodies behind the number one mistake professional killers tried to avoid? Not that she’d ever asked a professional killer, of course, but if _she_ was a professional killer, she would have tried to remain as incognito as possible.

And the scary part was, he truly meant it. She could tell he did by his matter-of-fact tone. It was honestly a solution for him. She wasn’t surprised—she’d seen him snap a man’s neck—but at the same time, it was hard to reconcile this cold, murderous part of him with the tiny, gentler parts he’d shown her as of late. Not that he was a fuzzy teddy bear or anything of the sort…but _slowly_ , he’d shown glimpses of a different person. And just as she got used to that person and tried to draw that person out, he went and said something frightening like this.

“Um.” She swallowed. “Maybe we could _not_ do that.”

“Not do what?” he asked, his tone sounding almost careless.

“Murder everyone in sight,” she whispered.

His expression was grim and he gave an unexpected dark smile, no teeth showing, ominous. “Then we’d better not get caught.”

* * *

 

 _“I can’t believe I’m doing this” should become my life motto at this point._ This was the only thought going around and around in Sophie’s head as they hid in the baggage compartment. She’d been privately hoping it would be hard to get in but of course it wasn't. Who had she been kidding? She was with the Winter Soldier. He didn’t just walk away from things. He forced them to be.

No one was outside the bus and the night was clear and starry, warm and still. Crickets chirped from beyond the darkness. He wrenched the luggage compartment open. It ran along one side of the bus and was about ten feet long and four feet tall. It was piled with bags inside but not filled to the brim, which was good because Sophie didn’t feel like being smothered by a Pullman tonight.

He stared silently at her and she guessed this was his way of telling her to get in—“How eloquent,” she mumbled under her breath—so she awkwardly clambered into the compartment, pulling herself over bags. She definitely couldn’t sit up without banging her head so she basically had to crawl and slither over the bags to find a decent place to lay back. Winter clambered in and yanked the top down with a clang, sealing them in total darkness. Sophie immediately felt claustrophobic in the tight, dark space and tried to regulate her breathing. _It’s only for a little while_ , she told herself. _Who cares if it’s hot and probably going to get hotter? Who cares if it smells like stale bags? Who cares if I’m locked into a tight, pitch-black space with the Winter Soldier? It’s only temporary._

She heard him rummaging around, the sound of bags hitting bags, and wondered what the hell he was doing. She soon found out. After hearing some strange clangs which let her know that he was over against the other wall of the compartment, he said in a hoarse voice, “Come here.”

Her stomach flipped as she blinked into the darkness. “No thanks, I’m good.”

“You’ll get caught where you are. _Come here_.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong. She was laying on top of the bags. The first person to open the compartment would see her clear as day. She stifled a sigh and began crawling and sort of slithering in the direction of his voice, her hands sinking down in between bags. It felt like crawling through a very puffy, awkward pile of pillows except her hair kept getting snagged on zippers.

“Where are you?” she whispered just as her hand pressed down on what was _clearly_ a human face. She let out a startled yelp just as his hand flew up and grabbed her wrist in an iron grip. She lost what little balance she had and fell slightly to the side, her right shoulder blade hitting the back of the compartment. “Shit,” she whispered, rubbing her dully aching shoulder. “Ouch…”

“Lay down,” he commanded.

“Where?” she snapped, already sweating. The ventilation was obviously not the best in here and she didn’t like being able to not see a thing. The whole situation made her feel like she was trapped in one of her childhood nightmares, the one where she was locked in a pitch-dark closet filled with furniture, unable to move or scream for help. Her nerves felt frazzled to their last end.

“On me,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and said, “Are you insane?”

“Where else are you going to go?” he asked pointedly, acid dripping off of every word. “We need to hide near the back, at the bottom, so the bags cover us. Stretched out, I’m over six feet. If we lay head-to-foot, we won’t fit. You’ll have to curl up in the fetal position for hours. Are you prepared to do that?”

“Yes,” she lied defiantly, trying to push herself off of him and whatever bag she had half-landed on.

“Really.” The scorn in his voice was plenty evident.

“Fine!” she snarled, losing her temper completely, trying to control her racing heart and labored breathing. “Fine! Just—shut up! Stop talking!” She would never have dared to yell at him so openly but right now her mind was screaming with panic at her situation. She felt like she was drowning in the darkness and heat and she just needed him to _stop talking._

She felt his hand on her back and then he pulled her down on top of him, pushing her down so that they weren’t laying cheek-to-cheek (which truly would have destroyed any and all sanity left in Sophie). He lay on his back and she lay on top of him on her stomach, her head resting against his chest. Her head was turned to the side facing the compartment door but she knew at least three feet of bags lay in between her and the door, piled about three feet high. She felt his arms moving, jostling her, as he grabbed the bags nearest them and yanked them on top of them so they fell on them like boulders in an avalanche.

“Are you trying to bury us alive?!” she whisper-shouted as a duffel bag fell directly on her head. The smell of slithery gym-bag material filled her nose. “ _Stop_!”

“We need to conceal ourselves,” came his apathetic reply.

“None of this bothers you?” she asked furiously, her voice low.

“I’m trained for this.”

“I hope Hydra has big plans for me after all this trouble you’ve gone through,” she mumbled into the side of a bag that was pressing against her mouth. She lifted her hand and shoved it a few inches away.

And that’s where they stayed. She thought she’d get more used to it as time passed but she didn’t. The temperature seemed to get hotter and hotter until she felt like she was actually glued to him with sweat. The air wasn’t circulating in the tiny, cramped compartment and it was hard to breathe. It was disconcerting to open her eyes and see pitch-darkness so she just kept them close. But most of all, it was odd to be laying on top of him. She knew it really shouldn’t have mattered at this point—after all, she’d slept in close quarters with him twice (once he’d been shirtless), she’d stitched up his wounds, she’d even _touched_ him (though that had been an experiment)…

Still, it occurred to Sophie that _technically_ , she’d gone further with the Winter Soldier than she’d gone with any normal guy in years. The last semi-serious boyfriend she’d had had been before the college incident and Sophie was the type to take things slow, so… She held back a sudden snort of bitter laughter when she realized that not only had she gone further with the Winter Soldier than any other guy in years, but the Winter Soldier was probably the _last_ man she would ever be physically close to.

How unfair.

“Don’t your wounds hurt?” she suddenly whispered, thinking about them. “Because I’m on top of them?”

A pause, and then— “Yes.”

“So?” she asked.

“So what?” he asked, his voice flat. “The mission requires it.”

 _The freaking mission. Of course “the mission” requires it._ “Just curious, if Hydra asked you to kill yourself for a mission, would you do it?” She was partly being sarcastic but she was also partly serious. His fanatic devotion to “the mission” was scary and alarming—but it was also confusing because he never expressed any personal enthusiasm about the mission. It was more like he had to complete the mission or die trying…just because Hydra told him to do so.

It was pretty messed up, actually.

He didn’t respond and she hadn’t expected him to. Her question had clearly been meant to start drama and he wasn’t the type to indulge in that. They lay in silence for a while, Sophie focusing on her breaths and the rise and fall of his chest, until they heard the people on the bus begin to make their way back to keep traveling on for the night. Sophie had wondered how the bus driver slept until she’d realized there were _two_ bus drivers who switched on and off. Clearly they’d perfected their routine. She didn’t blame them; considering how many people joined the tour, they probably made a ton of money.

The compartment was opened twice and both times Sophie’s heart rate sky-rocketed, but people only opened it to toss a bag in and then slam it shut. Most of these people wouldn’t dig deep for their bags until they reached Brasilia, which was the last—and main—destination.

Sophie suddenly heard the woman who’d offered her help talking right outside the compartment. It was hard to hear with a wall of bags piled between them and her words were muffled but Sophie listened carefully and could make out most of the conversation.

“Worried…the girl,” the woman was saying. “Did you see her…the boy anywhere?”

“Sure…fine,” her husband replied. “She’s not your business.”

“Did you see…bruises?!” the woman said. “That poor…hurting…her!”

“Could’ve…something else,” the man replied. “Not necessarily…abused.”

“Hope…right,” the woman said. Sophie listened for any more but evidently they climbed back aboard the bus because the engines suddenly rumbled to life, louder than ever down here, shaking Winter and her.

They drove through the night. The sticky heat and loud rumbling of the engine somehow put Sophie in a drowsy enough state that she drifted slightly, her eyelids slitted open slightly, staring at nothing. Had anyone else seen her right now, they would have thought she was dead. Neither she nor Winter spoke as they drove through the night and she slipped between the real world and the dream world, sometimes focusing on the zippers and hard buckles and edges of Winter’s vest pressing into her cheek (she would probably have permanent indents in her face now), sometimes dreaming about her parents and her old life.

She remembered the first two years of college, when things had been getting good… High school had been an awkward mess; always trying, and more often than not failing, to be popular and well-liked. Her looks had drawn people to her but her shyness—stemming from her private fears—had always made her seem like a bit of a weirdo. The fact that she preferred books to people by then didn’t help. But college…at first it had been so different. She’d tried _really_ hard to be social and outgoing, even when her stomach was twisting itself into pretzels of anxiety, and it had started to pay off. She’d caught the attention of a group of bright, popular girls, had caught the attention of a cute guy who liked the fact that Sophie listened to him talk endlessly about sports…

And then she’d ruined it by getting too greedy. She’d tried too hard, overstepped boundaries, invaded people’s privacy, and it had blown up in her face horribly. She’d gotten a horrible reputation, had lost all of her friends, was gossiped by everyone she knew…and she’d fled. Finished college at a different college nearby, withdrawing to the point where she had absolutely no new friends. No clubs. No job prospects. Nothing.

 _I shouldn’t have run away so quickly_ , she thought hazily to herself, remembering the dark days after she’d ruined everything for herself. _I could have…fought…_

“Why does Hydra want you?” The words were whispered so quickly that Sophie almost missed them. She easily could have missed them had she fallen asleep. As it was, she heard them and she froze, wondering how to respond. He’d never openly asked her quite like this.

“I—I don’t know,” she lied, her mouth dry. She couldn’t tell him. It was her last card and she was going to hold it for as long as she could.

“You’re lying.” His words didn’t have any direct accusation in them; they were thoughtful.

“I’m not,” she said.

“You are. I’ll figure it out.” He still sounded thoughtful and this was almost more frightening than his threatening voice; it sounded like he was…evolving. Except he was evolving to try and figure _her_ out while she tried to figure _him_ out at the same time. It was like a twisted game.

“Good luck with that, since I don’t even know the reason,” she said sarcastically, hoping she sounded convincing enough. Say anything sarcastically enough and you’ll sound truthful.

She knew she had to keep it from him on the _tiny_ off chance that Hydra truly did want her just to hold her for ransom or for some other reason unrelated to her skills. Because if that turned out to be true and she’d told him what she could do…he would turn her in in a heartbeat. And she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she condemned herself like that. So until she knew for _sure_ that Hydra wanted her for her skills, then she wasn’t saying a word.

Besides, she wasn’t sure if the words would even come. She’d held her secret so close to her chest for so many years…would she even be able to open her mouth and let the words come out? The idea of telling someone about her skills felt so _wrong_. It felt like it was going against her very self. Sophie Duran read books and Sophie Duran kept to herself and Sophie Duran didn’t tell her biggest secret. These were just the facts of life.

She wondered how he would react if she _did_ tell him. She’d wondered how people would react more and more ever since the Avengers came to fame. Before that, the idea of telling was unthinkable. People would never believe her and when she was forced to prove it—as they would try to do, to prove her wrong—she would then be carted off for government usage. But after the Avengers had stepped into the spotlight and people with powers and special skills had become prominent, she’d entertained the notion just once or twice. Toyed with the idea, wondered if people would think she was a hero like them.

Deep down, she knew she wouldn’t be considered a hero. She didn’t have _powers_ , she had skills. Calling them “powers” implied that they were good, in her mind. And her skills weren’t the kind that would get her branded a hero. She couldn’t fly, use super strength, or shoot laser beams from her eyes.

She could absorb information from technology. She didn’t know the parameters of her own skills, having used them as little as she possibly could, but she did know she was essentially the world’s best hacker. No codes or passwords or encryption programs could keep her out. And those were the kind of skills that got people turned into government weapons, used to do heinous things to destroy other people and countries—and friendships.

This was why Sophie hated her skills so much. They’d done nothing but give her trouble, they were invasive, and they had the potential to make her into a very harmful weapon.

No, Sophie wasn’t revealing her biggest secret until she was sure that was why Hydra wanted her.

They continued on for a few more hours and Sophie tried to fall back into that sleepy mode again but she couldn’t. She was too worried about Winter’s curiosity. From what she knew of him, he stopped at nothing to get what he wanted. And if he wanted to know what her secret was…

Her fists clenched. _I’ll never tell him. He can do whatever he wants. I won’t tell him._

Sophie could have wept when she thought about the fact that she used to be afraid of DVD players and cars and the most mundane things, when here she was, planning on engaging in a battle of wills with an assassin while laying on said assassin, sneaking across a South American border. She had wasted so much time being afraid of everything…if only she’d known she possessed some courage and will.

She could have at the very least gotten a _car_ and saved herself the hassle of biking everywhere.

The bus suddenly came to a stop and she heard sounds outside: the sharp bark of men’s voices. She strained her ears to see if she could figure out how many, but she couldn’t make it out. It sounded like a couple, perhaps four or five. The bus creaked and sagged a bit as the men made their way on board, presumably shining flashlights into everyone’s faces and demanding to see passports and visas with scary-looking faces. That was what Sophie pictured anyway, but it could have been her overactive imagination in play again. Perhaps the men were being very cordial.

They waited for twenty minutes and then they heard the creak as heavy boots descended back down the stairs of the bus. Winter wrapped his arms around Sophie and clutched her so tightly to his chest that she could barely breathe. It was as if he thought the harder he squeezed Sophie, the more they would sink into the depths of the compartment and vanish completely.

“Don’t. Make. A. Sound,” he breathed almost silently into her ear just as the compartment door opened with a loud, rusty creaking sound.

Sophie couldn’t see because of the wall of bags in front of her but there were definitely floodlights outside. She winced against the bright light, her eyes accustomed to the dark now, and squeezed them shut. She didn’t want to see what happened next. She held her breath, hardly daring to breathe at all, as she heard two men swipe through the bags. They seemed to be doing half-hearted work, merely picking up a few bags from the front and tossing them to the back, where they conveniently landed on Sophie and Winter, covering them up even _more_. The hard handle of a bag smacked Sophie’s ear and she gritted her teeth against the pain, her eyes watering. Winter’s arms tightened a fraction more and she felt like her spine was being crushed into powder. What was he _doing_? If they got any closer, she would literally _be_ him.

“ _Nada_ ,” of the men called in a bored voice. He said something else, someone chuckled, and the compartment door clanged shut. Sophie made as if to move and Winter whispered, “Not. Yet.” She didn’t know what he meant but she stayed still. A second later, the door swung open again. She froze and everything was still and silent for a moment. Clearly they’d opened it hoping to surprise any castaways who might have come crawling out in relief. Then they started chuckling again and the compartment door slammed shut again. She heard one of them bark something and the bus rumbled to life and began to move. Clearly they hadn’t found any problems.

“You’re killing me,” Sophie wheezed when his death grip didn’t loosen. “Let _go_.” His arms fell away and she relaxed, taking in a deep breath, letting her lungs expand. “Can I get off of you now?” she whispered.

“No. Not until the next rest stop.”

She mentally groaned. They both smelled like sweat and dirt. She felt sticky and hot, the air was as suffocating as cotton, and her body felt stiff after laying on her stomach for so long. She would have flipped over but that might have felt even weirder, as if she were using him as a bed of sorts. No thank you.

Satisfied that they had passed safely through the border to Brazil— _We’re so close to the end_ —Sophie fell asleep for real this time. She was only woken when Winter roughly nudged her and said, “Wake up.”

She blearily lifted her head and rubbed her eyes. The bus was silent and still. They had stopped. She slowly sat up, forgetting that the compartment wasn’t tall enough to do that, and banged her head against the top with a clanging noise. She let out a small yowl of pain and he immediately clapped a hand over her mouth. “ _Quiet_ ,” he hissed.

“Sorry,” she whispered, shoving his hand away. She crawled off of him, trying to stretch her body as she did so. She clambered over a pile of bags and heard him rustling around as he got up and crawled over the bags as well. She heard him pass her and lean against the compartment door. He was silent and she stayed silent as well; he was probably checking to see if anyone was outside. Once he’d determined that no one seemed to be outside, he pushed the compartment door open a tiny creak and waited to see if anyone outside noticed anything.

And this was how it went. He very slowly, surreptitiously, pushed the compartment door open. Bright sunlight blazed in and the compartment flooded with warm air. Sophie took a deep breath, relishing the fresh air. She squinted into the sunlight, her eyes hurting and weak after close to a full day of pitch-darkness and started forward to the opening. Winter grabbed her and pulled her out quickly, shutting the compartment door. Sophie was content to just stand there and stretch but he grabbed her hand and led her away to a nearby dusty picnic bench under a sad-looking, faded tree. She sat down and spent a good few minutes stretching her every muscle. Her joints made small snapping sounds as she stretched them. She felt stiff and creaky. Her eyes watered in the bright sunlight and she had to keep them closed for a while to avoid a pounding headache coming on. She also felt sort of woozy from not having eaten anything in ages.

She was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t even realize Winter had gone to get food until he was saying, “Here,” and shoving it in her face. She opened her eyes a bit, surprised, and squinted. He was holding a water bottle and what looked like a large, round flatbread wrapped in paper. She tentatively took them and bit into the flatbread. A sigh of pleasure escaped her mouth before she could stop herself and she studiously avoided his strange look. The bread was toasted and covered in melted cheese and peppers. It tasted _amazing_. She ate the entire thing in minutes, not even caring if she looked like a wild animal to him. After all they’d been through together, what did it matter how he saw her?

 _Huh_. She paused with the water bottle lifted to her lips. When had she started thinking about _her_ ordeal as something they’d been through _together_? It hadn’t been done together, had it? He’d kidnapped her, he’d hurt her. It was all about her.

And yet…was it really? Because she knew he hadn’t planned for half the things that had happened. Like getting stranded in a portion of the Andes mountains. Or getting attacked by a mountain lion. Or taking this odd tour down to Brazil. So technically…he _had_ gone through it with her. They’d done it together.

Odd.

“Question,” she said after she drank half the bottle. He was slowly picking at his own piece of bread, looking far less interested in it than she had. “Why haven’t you just contacted Hydra to airlift us out of here?”

He seemed to look slightly more interested in his bread now.

“Come on,” she pressed, leaning back against the table and squinting out at the small town. Brazil didn’t look much different from Peru at this point but she noticed that the greenery seemed slightly thicker and more lush here. It seemed a little more jungle-ish. “You could have stolen a phone or something, if you don’t have one.” She knew he didn’t have one. “So why didn’t you?”

He remained silent.

“I know you have a reason,” she said, deciding to start babbling again. “I’m just wondering what it is. Are you not allowed to contact them during a mission? That would be kind of stupid. Or do you not know how to contact them? They seem to have kept you in the dark about a lot so maybe they won’t let you know how to get a hold of them. That’s actually really sad, even though it’s—”

“I’m doing this on my own,” he said through clenched teeth.

“What do you mean?”

He exhaled forcefully through his nose, his expression stony. “I always finish my mission. And I never need help. I don’t need to call us in. I’m going to get us there and finish the mission.” His words were tight.

“Well…that’s pretty nice,” she said. She leaned over and patted his arm. He stiffened at her touch and she ignored it, already knowing by now that he wasn’t used to friendly touches. “I hope you don’t get in trouble for taking too long to deliver me.”

He looked at her, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What? Why the hell would you care?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve accepted that I’m going to Hydra no matter what. And I’ve realized it’s not really your fault.”

“I took you,” he said flatly.

“Under orders,” she countered.

“Which I followed.”

“Against your will.”

His eyes widened and his face turned white, his skin looking stretched over his bones. “ _What_ did you say?”

She pressed her lips together, unsure if her words would anger him into doing something bad. She was growing more and more used to him but she wasn’t about to trust him completely.

“Tell me,” he snarled, inching closer, his hand drifting to his side as if he was going to pull out a gun and kill her right there.

“I don’t think you chose to be the Winter Soldier,” she said softly, looking at him. His eyes widened and he looked angry and puzzled, as if he didn’t understand what she was saying.

“And what,” he said tightly, his words very carefully controlled, “makes you say _that_?”

“You don’t have a name,” she said quietly, “and you don’t remember ever having a name. You’re loyal to Hydra and the mission to the point of insanity—but you have no personal enthusiasm for either, apparently. You hurt me to control me but you never seem like you like it or want to do it. You…” She bit her lip. “You _flinched_ when I touched you gently. You don’t seem to have any likes or dislikes beyond the mission. You don’t talk. And you might think this is normal, but it’s not. Even bad guys and agents and spies and assassins—whichever one you are—have personalities. Even they have names. And they usually _like_ what they do, or…or have some sort of personal motive for doing it. What’s _your_ motive, Winter? Why do you work for Hydra? And don’t say that you’re their asset,” she said fiercely, “because people also aren’t supposed to be _assets_!”

Winter looked frozen to the spot. His skin had gone a gray, ashen color. She could see the whites of his eyes. His face was locked in a puzzled, shocked, empty sort of look, as if he couldn’t fathom what she was saying—and couldn’t respond, either. He stared at her and his eyes darted to the right and then to the left, as if he was trying to think of a response. She waited. He licked his lips once and opened his mouth—but snapped it shut, looking more confused than ever. “I…” His voice trailed off. For the first time ever, he looked to be at a total loss for words. She’d really thrown him for a loop this time.

“And don’t just hit me,” she whispered, knowing she was pushing him way past his boundaries—further than she had ever pushed him before. “Really _think_. Why do you work for Hydra? Why are you doing what you do?”

“I just do,” he said mechanically. Then he blanched, as if he knew this answer didn’t cut it. “I…”

“It’s fine,” she said, standing up and stretching. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Wait,” he said, looking angry. “You can’t—I—”

“Just think about it,” she said quietly. “I guess that’s another reason I’m coming along willingly. I want to see what they’ve done to you. Because—and you might not agree with me or know this yet, but—they’ve hurt you, Winter. You can hit me. You can swear. You can stop talking. But they’ve done something to you that isn’t right and I want to find out what. And you should know too. After all, it’s _your_ life—or it was. And you’re still human, no matter what they’ve convinced you.”

And she walked away to go sit on the bus. Winter didn’t join her until the rest of the people came back an hour later and piled onto the bus. He was the last one on the bus and he sat as far away from her as he possibly could. But when she glanced at him, she saw that his expression was puzzled, as if he were thinking things over.

* * *

 

He couldn’t stop thinking about the things that Sophie had said. He’d desperately wanted to refute them—but how? The only way he could have refuted them was by rising to her challenge and answering her questions. Except the thing was…he didn’t have answers.

He didn’t have a name that he knew of.

He didn’t ever really _want_ to hit her or kill people; it was just a way to accomplish the end goal.

He didn’t have any personal likes or dislikes that normal people did.

He _had_ flinched when she’d touched him because it had been so…foreign to him.

And he couldn’t come up with any personal motive besides the fact that he was Hydra’s asset, he was good at what he did, and he needed to obey. That was all he was made for.

Or was it?

He’d never considered any of these things before. They had never mattered to him. He would vaguely think about how they affected _other_ people—his targets, the Hydra strike agents he had to work with occasionally—but he’d never even considered that _he_ was meant to have them.

And the strange thing was…she was right. He wasn’t stupid. In fact, he was exceptionally cunning and quick-witted. Had it been one of his targets that didn’t know their own name or flinched when people touched them, his mind would have registered this as abnormal behavior, because normal humans didn’t do that.

Yet _he_ was human…wasn’t he? Yes, he was advanced. He knew that. He was superior to others. He was better. He was a gift. He’d been told this in mechanical voices many times. It was fact. But at the end of the day…the species he belonged to was _human_. He wasn’t an alien. He wasn’t a robot. By all technicalities, he _was_ a human.

So why didn’t he have any of these things?

Was it because he was different—better—superior?

Or had Hydra been hiding things from him? This thought rankled. He didn’t like being kept in the dark. When he went on ops, he had full control and knew everything (or thought he did). But where _really_ …had he come from? He’d never even considered this before and now that the thoughts were in his head, they wouldn’t leave. It was like his mind was honey and they had gotten stuck like flies, drowning in the gooey mass inside. He couldn’t stop wondering. Had he ever had a name? Why was he different from other people, besides the obvious reasons? Did it really matter? And how had Sophie noticed all this? How had she seen what he’d never even seen? And why did she _care_?

And _what_ were these faint, ghostly memories—or memories of memories—that kept bothering him, brushing at the edges of his mind? He felt like his mind was fracturing, as if someone else’s brain had been smashed into his skull alongside his own. This had never happened to him before. He’d never…seen things. Heard things. _Felt_ things. Everything felt so foreign and strange—and yet oh-so-familiar, as if he’d lived two double lives. He wondered briefly if his mind was being affected by that human disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, but then decided against it just as quickly. No. He wasn’t affected by illnesses, of the brain _or_ the body. He wasn’t like a normal person. He didn’t get ill, did he? Diseases didn’t take a hold of him.

So what was all this? All this wondering, all these questions, all these strange new images and emotions and confusion? He’d never felt so utterly unsettled before. So thrown out of his own element. So _out of control_. Any bit of control he may have had over the mission—or himself—or the girl—was slipping quickly out of his grasp. He couldn’t control his own thoughts. He couldn’t seem to control her, no matter how hard he tried. The harder he pushed, the more resilient and nonchalant she seemed to be becoming. It was infuriating. He couldn’t even control the mission, because so many things kept going awry.

_We’ll be back soon._

He soothed himself with this thought. He’d take her back to Hydra. He would accept whatever punishment they meted out due to his late arrival and—

_Wait._

Why… He felt a strange twinge of annoyance. Why should he expect to be punished when he’d done the best he could?

Not only expect but why would he _accept_ that? That hardly seemed…fair. The word tasted strange in his mind: “fair.” He’d never applied the concept to himself because he’d never thought about himself to ever consider if how he was treated was fair. He had never had any sense of self and therefore, in some ways, was the most selfless person in the world. But now…he felt there would be a slight injustice to punishing him, wouldn’t there? He’d done the best he could, given ridiculous circumstances. He’d _made it work_.

But at least he’d be back on familiar ground. Receiving orders. Doing mission briefings. Having his health monitored. Injections. Heart rate monitors. Sleep monitors. Being led to a familiar chair, sat down, mouth guard in, and—

Something. He recalled this part the least. Even when he tried, it felt fuzzy.

All he knew was that he soon felt cold after and then faded to the darkness.

Until the next time he woke.

What did they do to him in that chair? For the first time in over seventy years, the Winter Soldier _wondered_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, darlings, now you know what Sophie's skills are! What do you think of this chapter? Drop a review and chat with me about it!


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So you guys are probably all like, "Girl, where WERE you?!" and I'm just gonna be all "You guys, this totally wasn't my fault!" I have a great excuse for why I've been so AWOL: my computer shorted out on me and I didn't have any of my files downloaded to a USB (lesson majorly learned). This has been going on for months and it's been frustrating as hell. Also, I did spend a whole month mourning (and shedding some tears) because I thought all my work was lost forever. Luckily, I've managed to salvage most of my files. I am now slowly copying and pasting all of my files and re-saving them (to a USB this time as well!) but it's taking time because in the process of copying and pasting, their format is getting all messed up. If you read my other stories, updates will be coming to those as well as soon as I can find their files and fix their formatting. Thank you for your guys' patience and I hope you like the chapter! Let me know what you think of it.

Sophie knew the end was near. Oh, it sounded incredibly melodramatic when she said it that way—but she knew all the same. Every time the bus stopped in a town or city, one of the bus drivers would announce it a few hours in advance. This time the bus was stopping in the Brazilian city of Goiânia. Winter had looked over at her and nodded tersely and she’d known: this was where Hydra was waiting for them.

_We’re almost there_. Her fingers curled in nervous anticipation. She’d avoided giving _much_ thought to what would happen to her when she got there because it had always felt like a distant dream. It would happen later…tomorrow…some other day…some other stop…

Not anymore. The next stop was theirs. There was no more _later_. No more _tomorrow_.

_And then we’ll really see…if Hydra wants me for the reason I think they do._ If they did…what would she do? Would she refuse to help them? They would undoubtedly threaten her and her parents as well. However…how far would she go to save herself and her parents? She’d done her best to keep her parents—and random innocents—safe up until now, but were her parents really worth the entire _world_? Because Sophie knew she had the power to destroy the world, if she was used in the right (or wrong, as it were) ways.

She stared out the window, seeing but not really seeing the scenery, her mind full of scenarios, and she made up her mind right then and there, when it was easy to make up, when there was no overt threat: she would refuse. She would fight back. She would hold out for as long as was humanly possible for her.

Sophie Duran hadn’t showered in days. She was wearing ripped-up Converse sneakers, dirty tights, a limp-looking red dress, and a thick black sweater. She looked pale, thin, and her hair was longer and stringier. She was covered in fading bruises and had been attacked several times by different people. She looked like a total mess. Nothing like the girl she’d been in Washington, D.C.: quiet but neat, clean, healthy-looking. And yet she felt calmer than she ever had before in her life. She felt braver than she ever had before in her life.

Sometimes she wondered if this entire ordeal hadn’t been a much-needed blessing in disguise. Which was better: a comfortable, safe life filled with emptiness, loneliness, and cowardice…or a dangerous, risky life filled with newfound strength? She wasn’t sure she could accurately choose yet, not having introduced herself to Hydra—but she had a strong suspicion she was leaning toward the latter. As crazy as it sounded.

A few hours later, the bus stopped in Goiânia. The city was nothing like the towns and villages they’d passed through before. Brazil had been urban ever since the early hours of this morning but Sophie was surprised by just how dazzled she was by the shining, silver city. It was really no different from New York City or Chicago—indeed, it was actually much smaller-looking—but she felt like she’d almost forgotten what an urban landscape looked, and _felt_ , like.

She and Winter slowly climbed off the bus for the very last time. Sophie stood on the sidewalk, waiting for it to drive away, hoping to watch it recede into the distance and receive some closure in her heart—but then she realized that the bus driver would be taking a break, as usual, and the bus wouldn’t be leaving for an hour or two.

_Oh. Oops._ There went her sentimentality.

“Let’s go,” Winter said. He grabbed her arm but it didn’t have the usual viciousness to it. He seemed rather exhausted by now too, dark shadows under his eyes and a weary air about him. He would probably be so thankful to have this mission come to an end. They began walking down the tree-lined street. Sophie looked around at her surroundings. They weren’t in the heart of the city but rather, at the outskirts. She could see taller buildings and skyscrapers rising in the distance, a few blocks away.

“It’s really green here,” she remarked, looking at the lush trees and bushes that dotted the entire landscape.

“Mmm,” he mumbled, looking around, clearly not paying attention.

Sophie cleared her throat. “And I tipped someone off that I’ve been kidnapped. He’s calling the police right now. You can’t kill an entire _city_ , right?”

“Right,” he muttered, now frowning and squinting at the skyscrapers in the distance. He seemed to be gathering his bearings.

“Also, I’m pregnant,” she told him. “With your child.”

Now he looked at her, his eyes narrowed. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing,” she said innocently.

“Then shut the hell up.” He resumed walking and scanning the horizon, as if he expected a spaceship to descend to Earth and pick them up. Perhaps that was what was going to happen. Sophie wouldn’t even be surprised at this point.

They reached a crosswalk and he stared at the name of the street for a very long time, standing as still as stone. People walking around them gave them looks as they passed by, clearly irritated by the idiots who’d decided to stand in the middle of the sidewalk. Some people gave them nasty looks, others curious, and some simply rolled their eyes and mumbled, “ _Turistas_ ,” before continuing on.

Sophie supposed they _did_ look pretty weird. She was a white girl who looked like a hobo, dressed in traditional Peruvian mountain clothes. He was a white guy who looked like a hobo, dressed in all black with combat boots, a military-looking vest, a baggy black sweater, and black gloves. Both of them looked vaguely insane. They didn’t fit in with the bright tourists or the polished, urban Brazilians stepping around them.

“This way,” he finally said, heading right. She followed him then through a maze of streets, turning this way and that, passing by lush gardens, businesses, and even some houses. They got farther and farther away from the hustle and bustle of the main city and soon ended up on a lone paved road—no sidewalks—that seemed to lead out into plain fields and forest, palm trees springing up every which way. They’d been walking for two hours now and her legs ached like hell but she wasn’t going to complain.

Much.

“When are we going to get there?” she huffed. “Where are we going? Goiânia is in the other direction—did you bring me all the way here just to take me out to the wilderness?”

He wordlessly pointed ahead of them. She squinted and made out the shape of a building in the distance. “Oh.” As they got closer, the building seemed to get bigger and bigger. It was about four stories high, rectangular, gray, and very large. It looked like a really depressing IKEA to Sophie, very businesslike but minus all the glossy, fancy facets of a business. She didn’t think there’d be polished floors and glass walls inside.

It looked like…a prison.

With that chilling thought, she followed him for another fifteen minutes until they approached an enormous ten-foot tall, forbidding gate. It was connected to a watchtower and a fence that ran along the entire perimeter of the building. A sign indicated that the fence was electrical. Sophie could hear a low, powerful hum coming from and her mind suddenly remembered the scene from _Jurassic Park_ where the stupid little boy had been electrocuted by the fence. She had a feeling this fence would do far worse if she touched it.

They stood there and stared up at the watchtower. Winter pulled out a pistol, aimed, and before Sophie could demand to know what he was doing, shot at the watchtower. She squinted up at it but didn’t see anything that indicated the watchtower had been hit. He’d missed on purpose—she knew he was a better shot than _that_.

A window slammed open in the watchtower and someone leaned out, pointing a huge gun at them and screaming, “WHO’S THERE?”

“The Winter Soldier,” Winter replied coldly, “with the target ordered by the Director.”

“What?” the man shouted. “The _Winter Soldier_? No way, the Soldier’s been AWOL for days.”

Winter slowly pulled off his black sweater and then ripped his gloves off, throwing them aside. He flexed his metal arm, flashing it up at the man, who was squinting at him, and icily said, “Is this enough proof? Let us in or I’ll shoot you and let us in.”

The man’s mouth fell open and Sophie saw him pale even from here. “Holy sh— It really is you. They all thought you’d… Anyway. I’ll radio it in.” His voice had become respectful and somewhat scared now, as if he couldn’t believe who he was meeting. Well, if he was just a watchtower guard, he was probably a low-level person anyway, Sophie figured. “Go on in. They’ll be expecting you now.”

The gate buzzed and slowly slid open. Winter roughly grabbed Sophie, startling her—he hadn’t played this rough in a while—and began marching her up the long drive. She squirmed in his grasp, saying, “I can walk _myself_ ,” but he ignored her and dragged her along with him. She didn’t know what had caused such a change in him but his expression and demeanor were frightening: both of them resembled that empty, icy indifference he’d shown in the first days after taking her.

What was happening to him?

As they neared the building, a platoon of soldiers—or agents, whatever they were—dressed all in black came jogging around the corner, all of them pointing enormous weapons at the pair of them. “Freeze!” one of them barked and Winter halted, jerking Sophie to a rough stop. The group approached them cautiously, weapons still held at the ready. The man who’d spoken was tanned, bald, and very muscular. He looked sort of like the Rock, in Sophie’s opinion, but much less friendly.

“Where have been, Soldier?” the man said sharply.

“There were complications,” Winter said flatly, looking bored. “The pilot was a traitor. We crashed in the Andes mountains. I’ve been making my way here for days.”

“Why didn’t you call it in?” Baldy asked suspiciously.

“I finish my missions on my own,” Winter said, a hard set to his mouth.

“You could have called it in,” Baldy growled.

“I finish my missions on my own,” Winter repeated.

Baldy rolled his eyes. “Just as dumb as ever. Which is just as well—can’t have the lapdog getting ideas, now can we, boys?” The men behind him let out short chuckles.

_He’s not dumb_ , Sophie thought indignantly—before she realized she was being indignant on the Winter Soldier’s behalf. Huh.

“Anyway…good job, then,” Baldy said. “The Director will be pleased—we thought you’d both died. So this is the target?” He walked up to Sophie and she trembled slightly as he invaded her personal space and stood _way_ too close to her. He was so much bigger than her. He flicked Sophie’s chin and she winced. She felt Winter’s grip on her suddenly squeeze tight and then relax just as quickly, as if he’d had a hand spasm. She glanced at him and noticed his frown was a little more pronounced.

“ _This_ is the target the Director wanted so badly?” Baldy asked incredulously. “This tiny girl? What the hell can she do?”

“I don’t ask the questions, I just finish the mission,” Winter said coldly.

Baldy stared at him for a moment—then shrugged and stepped away. “You’re right. It’s the Director’s business. Let’s go.”

The men had lowered their weapons by now and followed Winter and Sophie into the building, Baldy leading the way. As she’d predicted, the inside of the building was as gray and depressing as the outside. White linoleum floors, gray walls, fluorescent lights that washed her skin out and made her look even more ill than she already looked. Winter had let go of Sophie’s arm by now. They walked side-by-side behind Baldy as he led them to an elevator.

“You can follow in the next car,” Baldy instructed the group behind them. The doors slide open and he, Winter, and Sophie stepped inside. The doors shut and Baldy pressed the button for the fourth floor.

They rode in silence for a moment and then Baldy casually said, “Kind of cute, isn’t she? In a skinny sort of way,” to Winter. Sophie’s mouth flattened and she stared angrily at her feet, not daring to speak up. The man was pretending to be a comrade to Winter but she saw through him. His tone was mocking, his smile reflected in the doors cruel. He was taunting Winter. Winter stood with his arms folded and stared at the elevator doors, giving no indication he’d heard him.

“But then, you don’t care about those things, do you?” Baldy asked, chuckling. “Not a real man. Just a…dog.”

Sophie didn’t understand why he was antagonizing a man who was clearly much stronger than him—but then she realized that Baldy didn’t expect Winter to retaliate against him. Because he was their… _asset_. And he always did what he was told. They really did treat him like a dog and he, for some reason, took it. Her mouth filled with a sour taste that had nothing to do with the fact that she hadn’t really brushed her teeth in a while.

Baldy led them down a hall to a pair of double-doors at the very end. He knocked once and then opened the door, telling Sophie, “Go inside. The Director is waiting.”

“Where are you guys going?” she asked.

He gave her a strange look, as if he didn’t understand why she was asking questions. “We’ll be standing right outside. Now _go_.” He roughly nudged her inside and Sophie resisted the urge to slam the door shut on his hands. He closed the door shut behind her and she looked up to see a silver-haired, older man in an impeccable suit sitting neatly behind a polished wooden desk. She slowly walked forward, looking around the room. It was just as dully colored as the rest of the building but there were touches of sleekness: the polished desk, a few tasteful-looking paintings of seascapes hanging in silver frames, a black leather sofa in one corner. One green plant in another corner.

“Miss Duran.” The man stood up as she slowly approached the desk and held out his hand for her to shake it. She simply looked at it and then looked at him. She wasn’t going to play these games. He kept it up for a moment and then lowered it, his expression remaining calm. “I admit, I’m very surprised to see you turn up here. I’d lost hope that you’d survived the trip. We lost contact with the plane halfway through the flight and thought all of you had gone down.”

He waited for Sophie to say something and she simply kept looking at him. She felt like Winter, taking in everything and giving up nothing. “Why don’t you take a seat,” he suggested, “and I’ll explain everything.”

She sat down in the leather armchair across from his desk and he sat as well. He clasped his hands on his desk and said, “First, I must ask: how was your journey here with the Soldier? I never intended for it to be so difficult for you, believe me.”

Sophie stared incredulously at him. He’d never intended for it to be _difficult_? Then who had authorized Winter to use so much excessive force against her? Her journey had been full of nothing _but_ difficulties. And yet...along with the difficulties…there had been other things. Staying with Ihuicatl. Getting saved from Rob’s assault by Winter. Hiding out with him in the luggage compartment for almost a full day. Him buying her food and her questioning him. These things weren’t all necessarily _happy_ things—but they feel significant and private in some way. She knew instinctively that she would never tell this man anything about her journey, even if she didn’t owe Winter anything. She wasn’t exactly doing it for him; she was doing for it herself.

“The Winter Soldier is very…efficient,” she said flatly by way of response. The man waited a moment for her to add something else but when it was clear that she wasn’t going to speak again, he slowly spoke: “Well, where to begin? I suppose I’ll introduce myself. My name is Alexander Pierce. I am the Director of Hydra. Do you know what Hydra is, Miss Duran?”

“Yes,” she said shortly. This was a lie but she didn’t want to appear uninformed to him.

“I doubt you do,” he said. “Most people are under the misapprehension that Hydra is a neo-Nazi organization. We are not a neo-Nazi organization, Miss Duran. I assume you saw an equal number of people of color working alongside white people when you came in? Here at Hydra, we’re not concerned with foolish race wars. We’re concerned with making the world a better place.”

He paused as if waiting for Sophie to respond but she was silent. She’d been waiting for this: the evil speech. Every book that had a villain had one. She’d read enough books to recognize bits and pieces from stupid clichés and tropes. Alexander Pierce thought he was being original but he wasn’t, not one bit. And if he had to start his speech by explaining that they weren't neo-Nazis, then she had a funny feeling that neo-Nazis was exactly what they were. 

“We want to make the world a safer place,” he said, “and sometimes when you want to do the right thing, you have to take drastic measures. Do things other people wouldn’t.”

“Like Hitler,” Sophie said flatly.

“Ah, but no,” Pierce said slowly. “Hitler’s goals were not the ‘right thing.’ He essentially wished to exterminate large groups of people based on attributes that were not harmful. However, _our_ goals are world safety. Security. Peace. Do you think those are not the right things?”

Sophie didn’t say anything. She was heavily resisting rolling her eyes. Here was the part of the evil speech where the evil bad guy tried to politely convince the good guy that the bad guys were doing the _right thing_ , the _good thing_ —and naturally, they’d have to hurt lots of people to achieve these goals. “The safety of many is worth the lives of a few.” She bet herself a million dollars that he was going to say this at least once. Well, she wasn’t going to fall for any of it. No one who treated a human the way they’d treated Winter was _good_ , no matter what their goals were.

“We’ve been monitoring you for some time,” he said abruptly. “We like to do that; monitor people who seem to have special…or extra…talents. Truthfully, it’s your father’s fault. He’s been under watch for quite a while now. He’s enjoyed dabbling in some…unusual things in the past.” He gave Sophie a bland smile. “I’m sure you have an inkling as to what I mean.”

Sophie felt a chill steal over her body. The computer with the strange symbols that had started this whole mess. She'd always been too afraid to think about why her father had had that in his possession... 

“But despite your father’s curiosities, he remains largely useless. You, on the other hand, are not. I admit, we’re not sure the full extents of your capabilities—but we’re fairly certain that you can help us achieve great things. Who needs hackers when they’ve got the great Sophie Duran by their side? You can be a key component to bringing everlasting peace and security to the world. I know your life was unfulfilling before: you didn’t have friends. People turned on you at college, didn’t they? For things that weren’t even your fault. And your parents kept you isolated growing up. You’ve had a rough, boring go of it. Why not try something new with your time? Why not do something worthwhile?”

_And now he’s trying to appeal to me by attempting to “connect” with me._ He really was delusional, Sophie realized. He actually believed the garbage he was spouting.

“And what would I be doing to help?” she asked carefully.

Pierce smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m glad you asked. Nothing too taxing—just working with us when we need information from computers, breaking codes, gathering intelligence. That sort of thing. Far more exciting than just reading books and baking, I assure you.”

He really did know all about her. Sophie waited for the unease to come but she found she merely felt numb. Hadn’t she spent her whole life looking over her shoulder, afraid that someone was watching and waiting? She’d half-expected this to happen her whole life. “Fascinating,” she said flatly.

Pierce studied her carefully with pale, colorless eyes and then suddenly smiled again. “Oh, but you don’t need to worry, Miss Duran. We’ll make it your worth your time and effort. Rest assured, you won’t be treated as an agent. You’ll get a room filled with luxuries. You like books? You can get any book you want. You like movies, games, clothes, makeup, baking? We can get you _anything_ you like—for the rest of your life. You can live in luxury. You can enjoy yourself. Live in peace, enjoy your luxuries, not have to work menial jobs for little pay. And you’ll get to travel. Our work will undoubtedly take you to different places around the world occasionally—you’ll get to see everything. You’ll always be safe because you’ll always have people protecting you. You may feel lonely now and then, of course, but I daresay you’re used to the solitude—and there are several Hydra members who would easily enjoy becoming friends with you. Your family will be safe. And, most importantly, we have a great dental program here.” He chuckled at his weak joke.

_Translation: you’ll be kept as a prisoner, surrounded by guards all the time. You’ll never be able to leave. Your only “friends” will be the people who are hired to keep tabs on you. I’ll bribe you with books and material things to make you think you’re living it up. We won’t kill your parents as a courtesy. But you’ll have to do our dirty work—hack into important places, steal dangerous information and secrets. Yay! Doesn’t this sound amazing?_

Sophie suddenly noticed something. “You keep saying ‘you will.’ You have no intention of letting me say no, do you?”

Pierce paused and glanced down at his fingertips. Then he raised his eyes and met hers. “Unfortunately…no, I don’t. I loathe to put it to such terms because I sincerely hope you’ll agree of your own free will. It’s the same sort of life you’ve been living for years—secluded and solitary…except we’re offering adventure, a chance to do some good in the world, and whatever material goods your heart desires. I’m hoping you’ll see what a good opportunity this is for you to finally make something of your potential and agree on your own.”

“And if I disagree?” she asked shrewdly.

His pale eyes seemed to tighten slightly. “Then things will be a bit…unpleasant for you. We’ll still require you to help us with your talents—but you’ll be locked up with no privileges at all. I assure you, this is not the choice you want to make.”

Sophie’s mind was racing with all this information that had been dumped on her but she needed _time_ to digest it all. “Can I at least have a night to think it over?”

“Absolutely,” Pierce said. “In fact, why not spend the night in the very same room we’d prepared for you? This way you’ll get a taste of the kind of life you _could_ be living if you say yes. Perhaps it will assist you in reaching the right choice.”

“Okay,” she said. “And…what happens to the Winter Soldier now?”

Pierce looked a bit surprised by her question. “Don’t worry yourself about him. He’s none of your concern. He’ll be staying out of your way now that he’s successfully delivered you.”

“He _is_ my concern,” she snapped, trying to make her voice sound convincing and authoritative. “He—he’s a menace! I want to know what he’s doing right now and—and tomorrow—and whenever! He’s dangerous and I want to keep tabs on him so I can…” She swallowed. “So I can stay away from him.”

“I assure you, Miss Duran, the Soldier is not—”

“I’m informed about what’s happening to him and where he is, or no deal at all,” she said firmly. “I have the right to know, considering he dragged me to a different continent.”

Pierce studied her with a sharp, thoughtful gaze and then he nodded slowly and said, “If those are your terms—then you’ll be made aware. As for today and tonight…he’ll go through standard post-op protocol.”

“Which is…?”

“He’ll be physically examined and tested, he’ll receive the proper nutrients and medications to return him to peak function, and then he’ll go to sleep and have his sleep monitored to make sure he’s in well-functioning status.”

Sophie had a very hard time not reacting to Pierce’s words. The way he was talking about Winter…it was as if Winter were a very unruly dog, or perhaps a science test subject, or just some sort of…object to be poked and prodded at—but not a real, sentient human being who deserved to be treated like a person. Sophie still didn’t know what had been done to him to make him the way he was—did he have amnesia? Had he been tortured? Kidnapped as a child and subsequently brainwashed? Had a lobotomy done?—but she felt like she was getting closer to unlocking the mystery of who he was and _why_ he was the way he was.

“Alright,” she said briskly, trying to sound cool and detached. “Then I’ll…consider your proposal.”

“Excellent.” Pierce led her to the door and opened it. Baldy was standing outside, arms folded, staring at the opposite wall with an impassive expression. Winter was nowhere to be seen.

“Sir.” Baldy snapped to attention when Pierce opened the door.

“Calvo, please escort Miss Duran to the room we had prepared for her,” Pierce said.

“Yes, sir. This way, miss.” Calvo had adopted a faux-respectful tone for Sophie in Pierce’s presence but she knew better. She followed Calvo down the hall but before she could go, Pierce called quietly after her. She turned and he fixed her with a cold smile. “Think this over _very_ well, Miss Duran. Make the right decision—for yourself and for the world.” He stepped back into his office and closed the door.

“Follow me,” Calvo ordered. He led her through a maze of hallways, thankfully not speaking much. She didn’t see many people in the halls but the few men clad in all-black that they _did_ pass gave Sophie invasive once-overs. She was almost startled by how obvious their stares were and folded her arms around herself. It was strange how she felt more violated by these stares than she had any of the times she’d had to press herself close to Winter. Perhaps because she’d never even sensed a _hint_ of desire or improper intention in Winter’s being.

Calvo noticed the stares and her reaction to it and he chuckled. “It’s because you’re a girl.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Sophie mumbled.

“Hydra has female members, of course, but not so many on this base,” he explained, as if Sophie cared about why these men were staring creepily at her. “So you’re a sight for sore eyes, for some of these men.”

_Gross_. She recoiled inwardly at the thought.

He led her to a door set at the end of a private hall that had no other doors and bowed sarcastically. She wrenched the door open and flounced in, slamming it on his face, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cowed. She locked the door behind her and immediately looked up at the ceiling, and—oh yes. There it was. A small black camera with a red light in a corner. She knew they wouldn’t have _really_ given her a private space. Still, she was fine. All her plotting and planning was going to happen in her mind and they couldn’t get in there.

Suddenly she thought about Winter with a chill. _Unless they can…?_

Shaking the dark thoughts off, she set about exploring the place. It was a large room that doubled as a small apartment because it had a tiny kitchenette and a full bathroom. Cream carpeting, neutral walls, white drapes, and a white bedspread gave the room a clean, comfortable look. One entire wall was lined with bookcases, all filled with books. She walked over to examine the titles and felt her knees weaken slightly. They'd really done their research on her. They’d gotten not only her favorites but _all_ of the books she’d ever bought or gotten from the library in the past few years—and that was a lot of books. She knew Hydra was evil and that she should definitely not trust them but the presence of so many books was making her want to cry in relief. She’d missed these old friends.

But first, she needed to explore everything else.

A quick look around the room and through all drawers revealed that they’d stocked the place with the snacks and tea she liked, magazines, clothing that all seemed her proper size and favored styles (cute but simple and comfortable; Sophie wasn’t one for fussy, tight, or lacy clothes), and makeup products. However, she noticed that there were no candles, no pencils or pens, no nail cutters, no rope—nothing she could use to hurt herself. Not that she intended to. She hadn’t come all this way just to give up on herself now. It was almost shocking to remember that she’d actually considered death to be an option when she’d first been kidnapped.

She took a shower in the bathroom, scrubbing herself raw, and nearly wept when she brushed her teeth so hard that she was spitting blood for a minute straight. She’d forgotten what it felt to be truly, properly clean. Soap, shampoo, lotion—all of these little luxuries she hadn’t had in ages. There were even some perfumes which she used immediately, having missed smelling nice. She changed into a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt and then wandered over to the bookcases, pulling a brush through her wet hair.

There were plenty she wanted to read but she picked up the fourth Harry Potter book and sunk onto the bed to read. Harry Potter was always there to welcome her like a familiar old friend, no matter how rough times got. J.K. Rowling hadn’t failed her yet. Sophie had gotten thirteen chapters in before she suddenly realized that she hadn’t really taken in a single thing she’d read.

Her mind couldn’t focus.

It was unbelievable. Harry Potter had consoled her even in the dark days after everyone at the first college had turned against her and driven her out. But he wasn’t helping her now. She felt irritated and slightly panicked, as if book magic had died for her. What was happening? She put the book back and pulled out _Pride and Prejudice_. This would surely do it. She’d read this so many times that she felt like she could recite the entire book.

But the same thing happened. Her mind wouldn’t settle. She couldn’t let herself get sucked into Mrs. Bennett’s ridiculous antics because…

_What is happening to Winter?_

She couldn’t stop thinking about him.

The rational part of her mind tried to tell her how stupid this was. _Why are you worrying about him? Be realistic, please. He kidnapped you, he hit you (multiple times), he’s been unkind and cruel to you. He works for what is clearly a delusional, evil organization. You don’t know for sure that he has some sympathetic back story. For all you know, he_ chose _to sign up for Hydra. Maybe he_ chose _to have a lobotomy or something done to become a more efficient soldier or agent or assassin—whichever he is. And despite everything, he_ still _brought you here, so clearly he’s not looking out for_ you _. Why should you waste your time thinking about him? Or worrying about him at all? He doesn’t deserve it!_

But a different part of her mind—the more emotional, nurturing, sensitive part, the part that hated hurting others—thought differently. _All that is true—but face the facts, darling. You don’t want to admit it because he’s hurt you a lot but if you look at him with an_ unbiased _perspective, it’s very clear that something very wrong has been done to him. He seems like he’s been brainwashed or is being controlled by something—or someone. Can you really blame him for the things he did to you if he didn’t actually choose to do them? The way he talks about following orders as if that’s all he knows… And I know you’ve always said that there are no excuses for adults who do bad things because they were “brainwashed” because they’ve gotten the chance to socialize in the normal world and learn right from wrong—but look at him. Does he_ really _seem like he’s had the chance to socialize in the normal world? The guy doesn’t even think he has a_ name, _for God’s sake. And they talk about him here like he’s their animal or fetch-dog; clearly he spends all of his free time being poked and prodded here. He’s trapped, like you._

Sophie’s mind was spinning. She didn’t know how to feel about him. She knew she felt worry about him— _for_ him—coursing through her like an undercurrent…but she also still remembered the terror and pain she'd felt when he’d attacked her several times. All the times he’d made her wish she’d rather be dead. What if she was wrong about his situation and he _didn’t_ deserve her sympathy?

But what if he did—and she didn’t do anything about it? Could she live with herself if she found out, someday, that he’d been wronged beyond belief…and she’d let her personal experiences stop her from helping him?

If someone held a gun to her head and told her to hurt someone, would she do it? She didn’t know. But what if they held a gun to her mother’s head? She knew that she would. Would that make her a bad guy? Would she be responsible for her own actions? Or would she be pardoned because she’d been forced into hurting someone?

What if someone put a gun in her hand and forcibly pulled the trigger for her?

Was someone holding a metaphorical gun to Winter’s head? Was someone else pulling the trigger for him, pulling the strings to make him move like their puppet?

_How would you feel about him if you read about him in a book, Sophie_? She thought for a moment and realized that she would definitely suspect something else to be going on with him—and would cheer on the protagonist for deciding to set aside their own experiences to get to the bottom of his mystery.

But even if she wanted to do that, how could she? She was trapped here. She didn’t have any fighting skills. Her only skills were—

A sudden idea hit her. Her hands began trembling at the boldness of it so she got up and began to scrub Ihuicatl’s clothes in the bathroom sink to give her hands something to do. Yes…this plan could work if what she’d guessed about Pierce’s personality was correct. He _really_ wanted her to agree peacefully to help him. He seemed like the kind of man who wished to avoid a dramatic fuss when he could. So…hopefully he would react the right way when Sophie set her plan in motion.

And hopefully she’d be able to help Winter, as well as finding out what they’d done to him—and who he really was.

Feeling much better that she had a plan now, she managed to actually read some of _Pride and Prejudice_ before sinking into a deep, dreamless sleep on the fluffy bed.

* * *

 

She slept in the next morning. The bed was just _so_ comfortable that she couldn’t bring herself to wake up. When her eyes opened, the clock next to her bed showed her that it was ten a.m. She got up, showered and washed up, and then put on Ihuicatl’s clothes. They were slightly damp but they smelled like clean soap and they felt fresh, so she didn’t even care. She wanted to look like herself when she made a stand.

_Wow. Imagine that. Me, Sophie Duran, making a stand!_ She couldn’t help but smile at her reflection as she brushed her hair up into a tight pony.

She ate a banana from a bowl of fruit on her nightstand, made her bed, and then sat and waited. She knew the camera could see her every move and expected they’d show up soon, once they realized she was ready for them. She was right; twenty minutes after she’d sat down, there was a slight knock at her door.

She threw it open, expecting Calvo or some other agent—and was surprised to see Alexander Pierce himself. “Oh,” she said in surprise.

He gave another small smile that didn’t reach his eyes at all. “I’ve decided to escort you to my office myself, Miss Duran. I trust you slept well?”

“Yes, thank you,” she said politely.

He looked at her clothes and then said, “The clothes in the closet are yours for the wearing. I hope you’re aware of that.”

“I know,” she said, choosing not to elaborate any further.

Apparently Pierce didn’t really care what she wore because he nodded once, his expression emotionless, and then gestured with his arm for her to step out. “After you.”

She stepped out and he began leading her through the halls back to his office. He glanced at her once and said, “Have you come to a decision, Miss Duran?”

She smiled beatifically. “Yes.”

Apparently the expression on her face was pleasing to him because he seemed slightly more relaxed as he led the way after that, a small smile playing on his lined face. _He thinks he’s got me_ , Sophie thought grimly. _And all because of a few books!_ Thought admittedly, the books had been nice. _I’ll show him._

She’d planned on privately letting him down in his office but as most things in Sophie’s life, things did not go as exactly planned. The whole thing ended up being rather a dramatic showdown. They’d turned a corner and suddenly there was Winter. Sophie’s eyes locked on him immediately. He was staring straight ahead, face pale, shadows under his eyes, and was being almost frog-marched down the hall, arms pinned to his sides by two burly men. Sophie tried to lock eyes with him as they came nearer and nearer but there was a blank, almost dazed look in his eyes that frightened her.

“Where are they taking him?” she asked Pierce quickly.

“Don’t worry yourself about him,” Pierce said casually.

“I told you, he’s part of my deal,” Sophie said, trying her hardest not to snap and let her worry show. “I want to be informed on him, given that he put me through so much hell. It’s the least you can do to reward me for how roughly he treated me. He didn’t give me any privacy, so I’m not going to give him any.”

Pierce glanced at her as if he didn’t quite understand why she felt so fiercely about this, but then he calmly said, “If you insist upon knowing…he’s going back to cryostasis.”

“What’s that?” Sophie asked blankly.

“It’s a form of science that allows us to preserve people,” Pierce explained. “It’s mostly based on using extreme hypothermic temperatures—along with other things, though you’ll have to forgive me, because I’m no scientist—to help us preserve biological tissue. It’s how we’ve kept the Soldier so young throughout the decades.”

“WHAT?!” Sophie shouted, stopping dead in the middle of the hall. “YOU’RE GOING TO _FREEZE_ HIM?!” Everyone seemed to come to a halt. Sophie felt rooted to the spot, her heart hammering. Pierce turned slowly on the spot, a few paces ahead of her, to stare at her. Even the men who had Winter pinned between them stopped and stared. They’d already passed Sophie so now they were behind her. She glanced behind her and saw Winter staring at her with a bewildered expression, as if he didn’t understand what the hell she was doing. His innocent expression only solidified the anger in her throat.

“Miss Duran, I assure you, it’s quite safe,” Pierce said slowly, watching her face very carefully as if he wasn’t sure where her shock was stemming from—a place of anger? Or a place of glee? “However, if you want him punished, then I _also_ assure you that the process is not comfortable to undergo—or so my scientists tell me.” He gave a false laugh and Sophie wanted to punch him in the throat.

If she knew how to punch, that was.

“You’re insane!” she shouted. Her heart was racing and seemed to thump along to the beat of the words “show time.” _Show-time. Show-time. Show-time._ Oh yes, it was definitely show time. She hadn’t planned it this way but then again, she hadn’t anticipated that Winter was going to be _frozen_ like some sort of human popsicle. “What is wrong with you sickos?” she demanded, her stomach churning. “You even _freeze_ people! You’re disgusting! And did you say _decades_? How freaking long has he been going through this? What, do you just unfreeze him for a mission and then stuff him back in a freezer, like he’s a leftover casserole?!”

Pierce’s face had turned glacial, frozen with controlled fury. “I see,” he said very calmly. “It appears you’ve mislead me. You _care_ for the Soldier.”

Sophie took a deep breath but didn’t respond.

“Are you under the misapprehension that he cares for you as well? Because he does not, Miss Duran.” Pierce took a step closer to her and she held her ground, holding herself up as high as she could. “Do you think it possible that he cares about what happens to you? That he has _any_ sort of feelings for you—or feelings at all? You’re wrong on all accounts. You’ve chosen a poor object to direct your sympathies at. I can see you’re a feeling person and I commend you for this; you’ll do good work with Hydra because you’ll know you’re saving so many people. But the Winter Soldier is none of your concern. He does not feel. He does not think beyond what we tell him. He does not have any friends or loved ones. He is alone.”

“No, he’s not,” Sophie said, her voice shaking with anger and disgust and fear. “ _You’re_ the one that’s wrong on all accounts. He _does_ feel things. He _does_ think. And he—he—” She faltered.

Pierce caught a hold of it at once. “He has _you_ as a friend? If so, why won’t you say it out loud, in front of him? Because you know _it is not true_ ,” he hissed.

“It is true!” she shouted, making up her mind. She sincerely hoped she wouldn’t live to regret saying this. “I _am_ his friend and you know what? He’s the only person I trust around here. You asked me if I made a decision last night? Well, I did, and here it is: I will _never_ work with you. I will _never_ willingly help you. I will _never_ use my skills for you. The only person I’d help here is Wi—the Winter Soldier. He’s the only person. As for the rest of you—I’d—I’d rather die than help you!” she spat. “You can do whatever you want—torture me, hurt me, threaten me—but I AM NEVER HELPING HYDRA!”

A ringing silence met her words. She realized there were other people at the end of the hallway who were also watching the show and she knew news of it would travel quickly. Pierce’s entire being was still with awful coldness and she could tell he was furious by her dramatic outburst. She had embarrassed him in front of his own people and she could tell he did not take that lightly. 

“Fine,” he said finally, speaking quietly, his expression icier than it ever had been before. “I have tried to be civil—to offer you a good life here—but if you _insist_ on things being this way…then so be it. Things will be difficult. You _will_ help Hydra but the path will be extremely painful. Throw her in the last cell,” he ordered the men who were holding Winter and still staring at Sophie. “And throw the Soldier in with her.”

“What?” Sophie said, startled.

Pierce came close to her, looking livid and breathing very slowly through his nose. “You think the Soldier considers you a friend? I’m going to show you just how foolish you’ve been—and on what kind of monster you’ve thrown away your chance at a good life here. Soldier,” he barked, his gaze locking on Winter behind her. “I will give you one week in the cell with her. By the end of the week, I want her full agreement to help Hydra in any way possible. Torture her, rape her, I don’t care what you have to do. Do whatever needs to be done and if it’s violent, all the better. We need to teach Miss Duran a lesson, don’t we?”

Sophie felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped into her body, flooding her veins. She slowly turned to look at Winter, to see his reaction to Pierce’s commands, a dull roaring sound starting up in her ears. The ground was tilting slightly under her feet and she felt faint. Winter glanced at her once and he looked hesitant for a moment—before he faced Pierce, nodded tersely, and said, “Yes, sir,” in a low, emotionless voice.

Sophie’s terror was mounting and as the men dragged her down four flights of stairs, Winter silently following them, she could only pray that she’d been right in her judgment of him—because if she’d been _wrong…_ there was going to be hell to pay for her lapse in judgment. She’d been on the receiving end of his violence before and now he’d been given free reign to do _anything_ he wanted to her to make her comply.

_Please let him have been lying_ , she prayed. _Please let him have been lying. Please let him have been lying._ Her breath hitched as they entered a lower level two floors beneath the ground floor, dark and musty, flickering fluorescent lights illuminating the ghastly placed; it looked like some sort of torture chamber. _PLEASE let him have been lying._

The men dragged her to the last cell, yanked the door open, and threw her in so hard she tripped and hit the ground, skinning her elbows badly. Winter stepped in after her and the doors clanged shut. She heard the buzz of the cell’s door locking shut. “Have fun,” one of the men laughed and she realized in horror that he was talking to _Winter_ , as if he envied him. The men left, whistling as they did, and Sophie slowly clambered to her feet, examining her bloody elbows before slowly looking up and locking eyes with Winter.

This was it. The true test to find out what kind of person he was.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: EXCITING NEWS! I now have fan art and a TV Tropes (created by a reader, not by me) page for this fic! Three pieces of fan art, to be specific. I'm absolutely blown away by this. I remember when I first started writing fanfics, I dreamed that one day my stories would be well-liked enough to inspire fan works and TV Tropes pages. So this is a really big deal for me! I will link all of them here. I'm not sure if AO3 allows us to post links I'll write out the periods and slashes in word form and you can replace them with . and / to get to the actual links! If you like the fan art, go show the pieces some love! And a HUGE thank you to the readers who created these pieces of art and the TV Tropes page <3
> 
> This one is titled "Kindness." https:(slash)(slash)www(dot)deviantart(dot)com(slash)art(slash)Kindness-693565108
> 
> This one is a sketch of Sophie: https:(slash)(slash)www(dot)instagram(dot)com(slash)p(slash)BWddVSmgIfG(slash)?taken-by=thejack_wayne
> 
> This one was called a "sassy sketch" by the artist: http:(slash)(slash)imbxckytrash(dot)tumblr(dot)com(slash)post(slash)162750930113(slash)so-i-found-this-old-sketch-i-did-of-sophie-and-the
> 
> Here is the TV Tropes page (and if you'd like to contribute to it, go ahead!): http:(slash)(slash)tvtropes(dot)org(slash)pmwiki(slash)pmwiki(dot)php(slash)Fanfic(slash)RunWithMe

They both stood feet apart and stared at each other. Sophie desperately searched his expression and eyes for any indication that he was going to comply with Pierce’s orders. Her heart was pounding so hard she imagined even he could hear it. She’d gone with her gut on him—but the fact was, he’d so far obeyed every order Hydra had apparently given him. If she’d misjudged him…she was going to pay dearly for it. His eyes were locked on her face as well and he seemed to be searching for something, though she didn’t know what it was. She didn’t know how long they both stood there, postures tense, staring at each other, but when he shifted slightly, she skittered back a few steps immediately, throwing up her arms defensively.

He froze in the action of raising a hand to his head and cocked his head slightly, staring at her with narrowed eyes. “So you expect me to attack you,” he said calmly, “even though you got yourself thrown in here for me.” He paused and nodded to himself. “Smart girl. I’ve attacked you before. You’re right to be on the defensive.”

“Am I?” she asked breathlessly, trying to sound calm and not hysterical. Her breath came in choppy waves and she couldn’t stop herself from imagining him lunging at her—putting his hands on her the way Rob had—smashing her head down on the concrete floor and cracking it open like a coconut, blood and brain matter spilling against the floor in a dark pool… _No, Sophie, he wouldn’t kill you. Hydra still needs you._ She managed a wavery smile. Small consolations.

“Why are you smiling?” he demanded.

“Because I know that even if you hurt me—you won’t kill me.” She laughed humorlessly to herself at the absurdity of the situation—the fact that she was _relieved_ that all she would receive was some pain and abuse—and then her laughter turned into hysterical, nervous giggles.

He frowned. “Stop that. Stop laughing.”

But she couldn’t. Her giggles kept coming in breathless rounds and they sounded more high-pitched by the minute. “I can’t,” she said. “It’s funny—it’s so funny that I feel _lucky_ that all I might get is some pain instead of death… I’m a lucky girl…”

He stared at her for a very long moment as she tried to calm herself down and then he suddenly backed up against the wall behind him and slid down it, coming to rest on the floor, his legs splayed out in front of him. “No,” he said so quietly that Sophie almost didn’t hear it at first.

She stared incredulously at him, a tiny spark of hope igniting in her chest. Could she have possibly been… _right_ about him? “You’re—you’re not going to do what he told you to?” she stammered.

He very slowly turned his head to look at a camera blinking in one corner of the room. Then he slowly looked back at Sophie. “I will,” he said quietly. “But I have time. I’ll give you another chance. I’m sure Hydra would prefer you in…peak condition.”

For a moment Sophie wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or not—but then she caught the glint in his blue-green eyes as he widened his eyes a fraction of an inch towards her. He was silently telling her something. She felt a heady rush of relief that almost knocked her off her feet when she realized _he was lying to them_. He’d promised that he would hurt her in front of the camera so that they wouldn’t be able to say he wasn’t doing his job—and his excuse was that he was doing it for the ultimate better of Hydra. Plus, Pierce hadn’t told him _when_ to hurt her. From most angles, Winter was faultless.

She wasn’t sure this mattered to Hydra, however. Would he be punished for this act of defiance later? Had she somehow added to his torture or whatever they did to him (aside from freezing him)?

“Understood,” she said, staring directly at him, hoping he understood that she saw his true meaning. She backed up against the opposite wall and slid down it, her back resting against it, feet thrown out in front of her. They sat across from each other, twenty feet away from each other, and stared at each other for a very long time. Sophie was trying to reconcile these new changes in his behavior—and, unknown to her, he was doing the same thing to himself. Finally he spoke: “I have questions.”

“And I have rules,” she said quickly. He waited. “You have to stay on your side of the room at _all_ times,” she said. “You may be—not hurting me _now_ but…if you _really_ want me to…” _Trust you_. “You’ll stay on your side at all times,” she ended feebly. True, he was defying Hydra—but for how long? If he wanted to prove that there was something else to him, he would listen to her and stay far away from her. She still remembered the feeling of Rob’s hands all over her. The frat boys who had circled her. The pain that came after Winter held his dagger to her throat or slapped her in the face. To trust him, she needed him to listen to her and stay away from her.

Her request had been choppy and broken but he seemed to have understood her meaning. His face was pale, expression blank, eyes glittering strangely—but he gave a short nod and she breathed a sigh of relief. Now that she knew he would stay on his side, away from her…she felt a little freer. Technically, it was probably stupid to believe him; he could easily have lied and cross over to her in a matter of seconds, pin her against the wall, and throttle her. But he’d defied Hydra once now, hadn’t he? It gave her hope that he’d keep his promise to her now.

They sat in a heavy silence, the tension between them so thick that it almost felt tangible. Finally he languidly asked, “So was this a part of your plan? Getting imprisoned?”

“Er—no,” Sophie admitted. “It was not.”

He raised an eyebrow slowly. He seemed to be doing everything slowly today, versus his usual lightning-fast reflexes and temper changes. It was almost as if he was exhausted and unwilling to put on a show, now that he was in his home territory. All pretenses could be dropped. That was how Sophie saw it, anyway. She couldn’t help cataloging his behaviors and trying to attribute back stories and explanations to them. It was the reader in her.  

“I actually planned to tell him privately that I wouldn’t help him unless I got to keep you with me.” She laughed tiredly to herself, knocking comically on her skull to show how stupid she was. “I was under the delusion that he wanted me to work for him so badly that he would have agreed to my terms and let you…I don’t know. Stay with me. I see now how stupid that plan was. You’re too valuable to them. And he clearly doesn’t let people boss him around.”

“Keep me with you,” Winter repeated, as if he didn’t understand what she meant.

Sophie fought hard not to blush. She could see he was genuinely confused. “I mean like…stay in my room or something. I just wanted…” She sighed. “I just wanted to get you away from them. But like I said, it was a stupid plan from the start. I was just being idealistic. Not only would they never have let you do that, but even if you stayed with me, they could come and retrieve you any time. And eventually they would have frozen you when they needed to… _preserve_ you.” Sophie’s stomach turned at the word and she squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the image of Winter being pickled in a huge jar like some kind of vegetable. _Bad wording._

He opened his mouth to speak and then slowly shut it, looking just as thrown as he had when Sophie had asked him why he truly worked for Hydra. He didn’t seem to know what to say in response. She waited for him to speak but it became clear that wasn’t happening anytime soon. He had lapsed into silence again.

Time passed slowly. The cell had cement floor, cement walls, and cement ceilings with one heavy door with a small, barred window set into it to her left. The lights in the room were dull and flickered every now and then, casting a horrible greenish glow over them that made them both look like they had some sort of terrible disease. She could hear a steady water drip somewhere in the cell, even though she couldn’t spot it. The red light in the camera blinked steadily, slowly at them in one corner, an omnipresent eye.       

She thought she was going to explode from pent-up frustration and nervous anticipation and worry. This was almost worse than being dragged around by him because at least then they’d been alone. Now she was hyper-aware of the fact that someone was watching their every move—or recording them, at the very least, even if they weren’t actively watching—and she felt like she couldn’t do anything because of it. She’d already betrayed that she considered Winter a friend (though the word was still highly debatable in her mind)…if she revealed any more, it would only be to her detriment, wouldn’t it?

And yet—what other choice did she have?

 _And is he_ really _a friend?_ No. He wasn’t a friend to her. He might have defied Hydra once and so far kept his promise to her…but he wasn’t a friend to her. He’d done things that no friend would ever do. Still, somehow Sophie felt like both of them were teetering on the delicate edge of something that could be called _trust_. They hadn’t fully reached it yet—neither of them were ready to let go of their reservations and defenses yet—but they were inching towards it, both casting equally suspicious and curious glances at each other.

“Aren’t you going to _say_ anything?” she burst out eventually, after several hours had seemed to pass. “Aren’t you going to ask me anything? I have questions for you! Don’t you have any for me?”

He’d been staring fixedly at the ground and raised his head at her outburst. “Yes,” he said.

“Yes _what_?” she snapped. “Yes, you’re going to say something, or yes, you have questions for me, or yes, I can ask you questions, or—”

“All of them,” he said quickly, as if hoping to shut her up before she started on one of her endless babbles.

She waited for him to ask her something but he didn’t speak. She bit back a frustrated sigh and then said, “Okay. Fine. I’ll ask first then: Why? Why aren’t you…following Pierce’s orders? What changed? I thought you were all about _completing_ the mission. Why are you breaking the rules now? And if you wanted to break the rules, couldn’t you have decided this a little earlier?” she mumbled under her breath. Judging by the way his eyes narrowed slightly, he'd heard her.

He opened his mouth to speak and Sophie braced herself for an important revelation—and what came out was, “No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No,” he repeated, swallowing. His cheeks were stained with a dull flush and if Sophie hadn’t known better, she would have sworn he looked embarrassed. “I’m not answering those questions.”

“Why not?” she snapped. “You just told me I _could_ ask you questions!”

“I changed my mind,” he snarled. “I’m not answering any questions. Why don’t _you_ tell me why you’re doing all of this? Do you think I’m your _friend_? Because you’re wrong. I don’t have friends. I don’t _make_ friends. I’m not a _friendly_ …”

“Person,” Sophie snapped. “You can admit it—you’re a person. I know you try to hide it—or maybe you don’t even know sometimes—but you are.”

“So why?” he pressed, ignoring her.

“Why the hell should I tell you?” she shouted. “You didn’t answer any of my goddamn questions!”

They both shut their mouths and glared angrily at each other, stuck at an impasse now. She desperately wanted to know why he was choosing to show her mercy _now_ but he’d randomly decided he wasn’t going to tell her why, which was so incredibly ridiculous and stupid. And yet he expected _her_ to explain her decisions to him? _Hypocrite, thy name is Winter Soldier_ , she thought furiously, clenching her fists.

“You’re doing it wrong,” he snapped.

“What?” she demanded, her tone still raring for a fight.

“You’re making a _fist_ wrong. You—never mind,” he said suddenly, lapsing into a sullen silence, his head and shoulders sinking slightly. Sophie gaped at him, wondering if he suffered from bipolar disorder, but he gave no sign that he was pulling out of his sudden funk. She suddenly felt exhausted by their short spat and curled up on the cold hard ground, pressing her hands together in prayer position to use as a pillow under her head. She closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep. The chill from the ground seemed to radiate up through her entire body and she had never been so glad for her thick, woolen sweater as she was now. She lay there, vaguely trying to come up with reasons why an underground lair in Brazil in the summer would be chilly—was there some scientific principle that explained this?—when…

“My name.”

He whispered the words so quietly that Sophie would have missed them had she been in any other place. However, she was in a deathly silent dungeon, tense because she was locked in with a dragon, and so she heard it. One eye cracked open and she stared at him suspiciously before slowly sitting up and asking, “What?”

“My name.” The words came out mumbled again and he seemed to be avoiding her eyes. “You asked me…what my name is. And I don’t—” He hesitated. “I don’t have one—but I think I might. I just don’t remember. And you asked me what it was and I…don’t know. You asked me a lot of things I don’t know and I’m doing this because…” His voice trailed off and he looked haunted.

Sophie’s heart gave a squeeze. _He’s doing this because he’s starting to want to know who he is. He’s starting to realize he’s a person. And I’m the only other person who even gives a crap._ “Well…since fair is fair…” She cleared her throat. “I’m doing this because…despite the things you did to me…I don’t _actually_ think you chose to do them or enjoyed doing them. I could be wrong but—but I’m probably not, at this point. Hydra’s wronged you in some way, whoever you really are, and I wanted to stick up for you. I might be the only person who cares about what your real name is.”

He gave her a faint shadow of a smile and she actually clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp. His smile immediately vanished and he got a guarded look in his eyes. “What?” he asked in a low voice. “I didn’t even move.”

“No,” she breathed. “It’s not— You didn’t _scare_ me, you—you smiled,” she finished weakly. “Do you realize…you’ve _never_ smiled even once? Or shown any sort of happy emotion?”

He definitely looked the opposite of happy right now. In fact, he looked embarrassed and angry. “I didn’t smile,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck absentmindedly with his hand.

 _Whatever you say_. Sophie didn’t push him, but she was elated on the inside. This was an extreme step forward to him, in her opinion. He’d actually shown emotion and what was more, he’d smiled. _He has such a nice smile_ , she thought to herself, feeling almost dazzled. _He should show it off more often_. Yet again she was strangely reminded of the fact that had he not been twisted by Hydra, whatever they had done to him, he would have been a normal young man in his mid- to late-twenties and handsome to boot. She could easily envision him in the crowd at a rock concert or perhaps even a hipster coffee bar, girls flirting with him. _What kind of person_ , she wondered, _would the Winter Soldier have been if he hadn’t been so messed up?_

It felt like they’d exhausted their talking for the time being. She couldn’t blame him for not talking anymore. This was possibly the most she’d heard him talk _ever_. For a man who was normally so accustomed to silence and obeying orders without question, this must have been an extremely strange experience.

Sophie tried to retreat into her personal dream world to escape the monotony. She’d always been good at that—blankly withdrawing into her shell to imagine unlikely scenarios and situations in her head, where she was always safe and there was always an escape—but lately she’d found it harder to lose herself in it. She wondered if it had something to do with the fact that her real life had been thrust into disorder and chaos, making the dream world seem…flat in comparison. What was the point imagining that she was a princess locked in a dungeon, waiting for a prince to save her—when she actually _was_ locked in a cell…albeit with no prince on the way?

But that was okay. Because Sophie was realizing that she could save herself.

* * *

 

Hour passed and they sat in silence. He was as still as a statue and she found herself staring at him, awed by how still he could sit. However, she’d never watched him so intently before and she realized that he _did_ move. The movements were so subtle and quick that she almost missed them, but occasionally his hand would drift slightly, his legs would give a random twitch, he would bite his lower lip for a second…

At some point she heard heavy footsteps walking down the hall outside the cell. Her heart froze and she stared at the tiny window in the door, slowly edging away from it subconsciously. Was it another guard, sent down to replace Winter? Perhaps they were unsatisfied with the lack of violence going on down here. If someone tried to throw Winter out and take his place, would he defend her? Or was he not that far gone yet?

But it was only dinner. She saw the dark head of a guard momentarily and then he was crouching, a hand shoving two trays roughly through a flap at the base of the door. They slid across the floor and came to rest near Winter. They both stared at them for a moment and he looked up at her expectantly, as if he expected her to get up and get her tray. When it was clear that she wasn’t going to get up, he examined both foil-covered trays and then expertly kicked one with his feet, sending it shooting across the floor directly at her.

She caught it and ripped the foil off. A soft, bruised apple. A lumpy, sad-looking sandwich. And a carton of _water_.

Who the hell made cartons of _water_?

“Wow,” she mumbled sarcastically. “Really going all out with this meal.” She looked up at Winter, expecting some form of agreement—and was shocked to see that his tray had a lot more food on it. “What the hell?” she said. “Why do you get so much more food?”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

 _Of course he needs more food_ , the rational part of her said soothingly. _He’s much bigger than you and he’s some kind of superhuman. He probably burns a lot more energy and needs more calories—kind of like Michael Phelps or something. Plus, were you expecting Hydra to treat you well? They probably want to starve you._

The irrational, hungry side of her said, _I’M HUNGRY, DAMMIT, AND HE GETS MORE FOOD THAN ME! This is so unfair!_

“Catch,” he said and whipped something at her so fast that she blinked and it smashed against the wall next to her head. She didn’t even have time to flinch. In fact, she didn’t even _see_ it; she just heard it whiz past her. She turned to see a mushy, soft, mostly destroyed apple laying on the ground near her. She scrunched up her nose and glared at him. “Thanks a lot,” she said.

“You were supposed to catch it.”

“Even Joe DiMaggio wouldn’t have caught that,” she snapped.

He frowned. “Who?”

“He was a really famous center fielder,” she said. Seeing his blank expression, she sighed. “My dad’s really into baseball. Joe was a—”

“Baseball player,” Winter whispered.

Sophie froze and stared at him. “You _do_ know about him? You—you _know_ about him?”

“I…” Winter’s expression looked a bit pained. “I think I…I think I _saw_ him.”

Sophie suddenly remembered what Pierce had said: the Winter Soldier…had been around for _decades_. Her body felt like it was growing cold and numb, a chill running down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold ground. Just how long had he been alive for? Presumably he’d been born and grown up to be—twenty-five to twenty-nine, whatever age he was when he started getting frozen…but when had _that_ been?

Had he seen Joe DiMaggio as a fan of the New York Yankees in the early 1900s?

Or had he seen Joe DiMaggio from the rooftop of a nearby building, holding a sniper rifle, in the early 1900s?

What if he’d been born _centuries_ ago?

 _No—NO. Don’t be stupid, Sophie._ She sternly stopped her wild imagination in its tracks right then and there. _Hydra may have been around for a while but they haven’t been around for centuries—there’s no way. And there’s_ no _way he’s from the 1800s._ She had a sudden image of him in old-fashioned Regency era period clothes, brushing his lips against a faceless woman’s hand like Mr. Darcy, and fought back nervous giggles.

“Do you remember any more?” she asked eagerly, food completely forgotten. “When did you see him?”

“I think—” He frowned to himself and rubbed at his eyes, looking beyond weary now. “I think I… I don’t know,” he finally said. “I have no images. No real memory. But I _feel_ like—I can _feel_ myself watching him, knowing him, being…being _excited_ over him,” he added in a bewildered tone, as if he couldn’t fathom being excited by anything now. And he probably couldn’t.

Sophie was no expert on—well, _anything_ except books and how to be a hermit, but she had a feeling, from what he was saying, that he’d seen Joe DiMaggio as a normal person. This wasn’t necessarily true, of course; he could have seen him in passing as the Winter Soldier, on his way to kidnap some other poor, unfortunate soul. But why would the Winter Soldier have felt excitement over seeing Joe DiMaggio? No. Sophie had a strong feeling that he’d seen Joe as a normal human—which also meant that as a normal person, he’d been a New York Yankees fan…which _also_ heavily implied that he was from New York (or at least a neighboring state, probably).

A thrill went through her. She finally felt like she was getting somewhere in his mystery. It was all tentative guesswork at this point but she _might_ have a time period for when he was a normal person and a possible location for where he came from—and something he’d enjoyed, apparently.

_So if the Winter Soldier has been active for decades…that doesn’t leave much time. He was probably frozen for the first time anytime from 1940 to 1970, I’m guessing._

“By the way,” she added, “good choice in team.” She pointed at him. “I don’t think I could ever talk to you again if you were a Red Sox fan.”

He blinked.

“Sorry. My dad’s a huge baseball fan and he indoctrinated me,” she explained. “Dragged me to a bunch of games as a kid. I don’t actually really care. But I hate the Red Sox on principle.”

He didn’t look like he cared much so she stopped babbling and pinched her tray, pulling it closer to her and examining the food. The sandwich was a peanut butter sandwich. After inspecting the bread for mold (which it didn’t have, thankfully), she tore the sandwich into pieces and ate a few pieces, downing the entire carton of water and shuddering at the cardboard-y taste.

“You need to eat more,” he said in a low voice.

She looked up and saw that he’d been watching her eat. “Excuse me?”

“You’re small. And if you want to survive this…you need to eat.”

“Hark who’s talking,” she said, pointing to his untouched tray. “You need food too!”

He sighed. “I can bear longer without food.”

“But you shouldn’t have to,” she reminded him. When he still looked mutinous, she said, “I’ll eat if you eat. Deal?”

“Enough already,” he snapped—but he reluctantly dragged his tray closer to him and began picking at the food as well. Hiding a triumphant smile, she finished the sandwich and then examined the apple. _Nah. Definitely not worth it._

Since that tray had technically been dinner, she supposed night had fallen and was surprised to find that she was actually sleepy. She hadn’t realized it but the whole day had somehow passed in between their long silent stretches and periods of talking and arguing. She shoved her tray aside and lay down again, using her hands as a makeshift pillow. Her hipbone pressed uncomfortably into the ground but there was nothing she could do about it. She lay there for a moment, trying to convince herself it wasn’t so bad—what was this, compared to sleeping out in the open in the Andes mountains? (The honest answer was _harder_ )—and then she finally took her sweater off, balled it up, and stuck it under her head like a pillow. She would be colder this way but at least she’d have a pillow. She felt bad for a moment that Winter didn’t have a pillow—but then, he didn’t seem like he was the type to really care. He was probably used to worse, as depressing as it was.

 _Who would have thought, back in that abandoned factory when he dragged me kicking and screaming down the stairs, that we’d end up here_? she thought sleepily before fading away.

* * *

 

She woke up early next morning. Well—she was going to _assume_ it was the next morning. She wasn’t sure what time it actually was, not having a clock or a window. She’d had the most uncomfortable sleep of her life and her entire body felt sore. A dull headache pulsed at her temples and she felt like crying. Hydra was definitely not going to give her two Tylenol and a cup of hot tea to help her headache, like she did at home. She’d gotten them quite frequently at home—the cons of being a voracious reader—and they’d made her miserable. She hadn’t had one in a while but she could tell this one might work itself up to a migraine. The thought was horrifying. Migraines left her hardly able to move.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes blearily, and then leaned against the wall, yawning and pinching the bridge of her nose. When she peeked up, Winter was sitting against the wall and watching her in a detached sort of way, as if her morning actions were vaguely interesting to him. She frowned at him and suspiciously asked, “Did you watch me sleep all night?”

“No.”

“Did you sleep at night?”

“No.”

She rolled her eyes. “Smart. Not eating _and_ not sleeping. That’ll make you heal faster.”

Surprise flickered across his face. “Heal?”

“Uh, your wounds? The ones a mountain lion gave you?” He couldn’t have possibly _forgotten_ already, could he? There was no way he lacked that much of a self.

“Oh,” he said blankly. “No.” He suddenly began unbuttoning and unzipping his vest, holding the ends open to show her his bare chest. Her jaw dropped. The wounds—the wounds which had been angry and bloody red a mere few days ago and should have taken _weeks_ to heal—already looked like faint pink, shiny scars.

“H-How?” she gasped.

“I heal fast.”

“I’ll say,” she whispered. She locked eyes with him and tentatively asked, “So you can heal fast, run fast, hear better than others, are stronger than normal people… You _are_ human, right?” Her mouth quirked up into a half-smile.

“Yes,” he answered as if her question hadn’t been a rhetorical joke.

“No, I meant—” She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose again, hating the dull, steady pounding in her head. The pain was building. “How are you able to do this? What did they do to you? You weren’t born like this, were you?”

He shrugged.

“Come on!” she said, frustrated. “Give me something to work with! You know Captain America? All-around good guy and hero? _He’s_ a super-soldier. I think that’s what they call him. Is that what you are? Or were you born like this—are they powers that you have or something?”

He stared at her. She nearly screamed in frustration. Why didn’t he ever _talk_? He was the one who said he wondered what his name was, yet he seemed to have no curiosity about anything else! Why was she doing all this digging if he wasn’t going to be helpful?

“Okay, forget that,” she said, irritated. “Do you remember _anything_ about your past? Do you remember _any_ time before—before Hydra?”

His eyes looked blanked and troubled as he thought hard for a long moment. “No…”

“Nothing at all?” she pressed. “Not one childhood memory? Not _one_ hazy face in your mind of someone you knew? There can’t be just darkness before Hydra. You have to have _something_ before Hydra—people or places or even…objects or smells or something. You remembered Joe DiMaggio so there _must_ be something else…” She was mumbling to herself now, him almost half-forgotten.

“I see people,” he whispered.

“What?” she asked sharply. His words sounded like something out of a horror novel and his white face didn’t help. He looked more frightened than she’d ever seen before and this shocked her. It felt…somehow wrong. As if he didn’t have the right to look this way—but of course he did. Sophie was just projecting old resentments back onto him.

“They…they’re not real,” he amended.

“You don’t know that!” she said urgently. “Tell me about them!” When he hesitated, she said, “Okay, dude, listen. I pretty much gave up my freedom and any chance at being treated well so I could help _you_ —but I can’t help you until we figure out who you were. And to do that, I need you to tell me things.”

“What are _you_ going to do with the information anyway?” he asked somewhat aggressively. “Are you a detective?”

Her mouth twisted. _In a sense. You’d be surprised at how my mind works sometimes._ “Just tell me,” she insisted. “What do you have to lose?”

Apparently nothing at all, because he began to speak. He spoke haltingly, telling her about ghostly images and sounds and smells and touches. People, places, snatches and glimpses of a life someone was living. Words directed at him, some of them faded and kind, some more recent and taunting him, pulling at him, tugging at his mind. “It’s _me_ in the visions,” he said in a low voice. “But how can that be possible? I can _feel_ it. I’m in…a store.” His blue-green eyes went out of focus and got a glazed look to them; he was drifting in the moment of a vision. “I’m looking at shirts. I’m looking at a girl…a salesgirl? She’s…pretty. I’m—I can _feel_ my mouth smiling, it’s _me_ , but…” He snapped back into focus and looked at Sophie almost desperately, as if begging her to somehow explain and make all the confusion go away. “But I _didn’t do any of that._ I don’t understand what’s going on. I never had this before—I never saw any of this before—I…”

An awful idea had bloomed in Sophie’s mind. “How long are your missions, usually?” she asked.

He frowned, thinking. “A day or two…usually.”

“Have there ever been longer ones?”

“A few. I don’t remember. But…a few.”

“Were you alone on them?” she asked. “Or did you have to—touch base or report back to someone? Whatever. You know what I mean.”

“I…I reported back,” he said, looking puzzled. “So—?”

Sophie stared at him, feeling sickened but also a tiny bit elated, because she felt like she’d found another piece to the enormous puzzle that was him. “I think you’ve been having your memories suppressed by Hydra.”

He looked merely taken aback for a moment—and then his face turned into a snarl. “No, I haven’t,” he said sharply.

“Then explain your visions,” she said loudly. “Then explain why you never seem to _really_ remember the details of everything. It’s not like memory suppression doesn’t exist, you know, it—” She paused. In truth…she’d never heard of forced memory suppression in real life. She’d heard of brainwashing, indoctrination, and accidentally memory loss…but never someone actually having their memories suppressed. She’d only ever read it in fantasy and sci-fi books. But still, the Winter Soldier himself seemed straight out of a sci-fi book. So did all the Avengers, in fact. The aliens that had invaded New York a few years ago were clear proof that these things existed. So why not memory suppression?

Because that was what it was. She knew that sci-fi books and movies liked to use _memory wiping_ as the term du jour but judging by his almost hallucinatory visions, his memories hadn’t been erased at all. They were just buried deep underneath whatever they’d done to him. And she suspected that they regularly suppressed his memories as touch-ups; this was probably why he had to touch base on longer missions.

But now he’d been away for almost two weeks now without being in Hydra’s grasp—was it possible that his memories were resurfacing? Could they be _that_ close to the surface? Or were her pointed questions helping him recall them more quickly? Whatever it was—time and distance, or Sophie—she knew it was working.

She explained her thoughts to him and saw his face whiten with every word. His hands clenched so that the tendons in his human hand stood out like taut rubber bands ready to snap. He clearly didn’t appreciate the idea that his mind had been regularly tampered with and that he might have been made to routinely _forget_ it—along with forgetting his original person. She didn’t blame him. The thought was invasive beyond belief. She’d considered it might have been done to him before but now she was almost convinced. And it had happened to _him_ ; she couldn’t even imagine how it would be to realize that the blank spaces in your mind had been forcibly put there.

In that instant, Sophie forgave him for everything he’d done to her. She couldn’t help it. Perhaps it was foolish of her to. Maybe she was being too trusting. But her heart ached in so many different ways at the perplexed, angry, almost hurt expression on his face—as if he were a naïve child who had never expected _this_ betrayal—and she couldn’t hold his actions against him any longer. Whatever he had done, it was clear that his mind had been tampered with and he hadn’t been in full control at all.

She liked to believe that the man he’d once been—the one who’d gotten excited over seeing Joe DiMaggio play at some point—would never have hurt her.

“We can find out who did this to you,” she said almost desperately, seeing him struggle to take normal breaths. “We can—”

“HOW?” The word burst out of him in a furious scream and he suddenly looked livid, hunched over and clutching at his hair, breathing heavily. “ _How_ , Sophie?” he shouted. “I know nothing! I am nothing! And you’re nothing, too! Hydra is everything and they’re never going to let us do anything.” He laughed bitterly. “They’re recording us. When they see how much I know, they’ll probably just _wipe me_ again. At least now I know what the chair is for.” A strange, almost-horrified expression crossed his expression. “The chair… Now I know.”

“The chair,” Sophie repeated uneasily. “What chair?”         

“It’s in a room with machinery around it,” he said automatically. “They attach things to my head—I don’t remember what happens after— _of course_ I don’t,” he said harshly. “Of course I don’t. But they…I don’t know. I DON’T KNOW!” The words burst out of him in frustration and he slammed his metal fist on the ground, creating tiny hairline cracks in the ground and a small crater where his fist had hit.

“Winter, calm down,” Sophie begged. “It’s okay if you don’t remember what the chair does—”

“No, it’s not! Because I know but I _don’t_ know! And now that I know, they’re going to take me to it, and this time I _will_ know what’s going to happen—but when it’s over, I won’t, and I’ll be gone again.” The furious torrent was pouring out his mouth and his eyes had a crazed look to them, almost demented. “I—I’ll _know_ I’m going to lose it all and it’ll happen and then it’ll be like—like I never—”

“I’m not going to let them take you to the chair again,” Sophie said fiercely.  

He sneered at her. “What are you going to do? Hundred pound girl who doesn’t know how to fight—”

“First of all, I’m a hundred and _ten_ pounds,” she snapped.

He gave a mirthless laugh. “Amazing. I’m shaking in my boots.”

“And second of all, I…” She froze and her heart began to pick up speed. _Am I really doing this_?

Yes. She was.

“I have other skills,” she said softly.

He focused on her with laser intensity and immediately asked, “What are they? I knew you were hiding something.”

Her eyes darted to the camera and he caught her look. His eyes burned with curiosity but he nodded tersely and settled slowly back against the wall. He seemed to have calmed down from his outburst, for which Sophie was eternally thankful. Hydra knew the vague outline of her skills but she sensed that they didn’t know the specifics. How could they? She hadn’t used them in years and when she had, no one had seen her use them. She didn’t want to reveal anything by accident that they might not have known.

An hour later, they heard loud, clomping footsteps, the whistling of a guard, and two more trays were shoved into the room. Winter slid hers to her again, her name written on the foil. It was some sort of gray, lumpy oatmeal and a carton of milk, the kind Sophie used to get in her elementary school lunches. It was disgusting but she forced herself to eat because he was right; if she wanted to survive this and help him, she needed energy. She pictured Belgian waffles with powdered sugar and syrup while she ate to distract herself but this backfired and ended up making her appetite diminish.

Sophie asked him questions after. He looked like he didn’t want to respond but when Sophie reminded him that she needed information to help him, he grudgingly spoke. She asked him about any family he remembered, any friends, places he had lived, jobs he may have worked, a significant other. He remembered nothing but bits and pieces: a small blond man and also a large blond man that he said felt like the same person. This puzzled Sophie. He remembered girls—quite a lot of them. Never any names or distinct facial features but he remembered dance floors, bars, the colors of dresses and hair.

“So you were a ladies’ man,” Sophie said dryly. “I…no offense, but I really can’t see that.” She could more easily picture him slamming a woman down on a mat wrestling-style than she could picture him cuddling up to one. An image of Winter, dressed in full combat gear, a bored expression on his face, cuddling some faceless woman filled her mind and she bit back the urge to laugh.

“Neither can I,” he said bluntly, looking disgruntled. “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. Whoever I was—that’s all gone. And all of these people must be dead.”

“Not necessarily,” she argued. “We have no idea when you were first…um, frozen. Or taken. Or whatever. Maybe you were twenty-nine in the sixties! Those people could all still be al…” Her voice trailed off. He’d suddenly closed his eyes and tilted his head back, as if he were meditating. The cross-legged pose he sat in didn’t really help. “Um, what are you doing?”

“I…wasn’t frozen in the sixties,” he murmured. “I pulled off my first kill…on…in the ’50s. A man, a politician, a— No. A Civil Rights…an early activist.”

Sophie felt sickened by this revelation. She knew it was silly to feel sickened by this after all she’d seen him do, and all she knew about him, but _still_ —he’d just admitting to killing a black Civil Rights activist. If she ever needed proof that Hydra was pure evil, this was it. She was suddenly seized with sudden panic and tried to recall the year that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. He _couldn’t_ have murdered one of the most influential men of all time…could he? She remembered that he’d died in the sixties…but that still didn’t mean he hadn’t killed him.

What if every high-profile kill could be attributed to him?

Or even _most_ of them?

 _Not his fault_ , she chanted in her mind, trying to ward off a sudden chill. _Not his fault. Not his fault._ If Hydra had suppressed his memories, she was pretty sure they’d tampered with his mind and body to turn him into this…well, super soldier. That was really the only term for it. They weren’t above doing that, she was sure of it.

And as for the metal arm…

“Tell me about your arm,” she said. “How did you—um, I mean—did you always…?”

“I don’t know,” he said dully, “but in the visions, I don’t have it. So…”

“So Hydra gave you a metal arm,” she said, feeling a little confused. “Why would they give you just one arm? Why not both arms? Or why not most of your body?”

“Cybernetic arm,” he corrected. “Not _metal_ arm.” His tone was scornful.

She rolled her eyes. “Sorry, I’m kind of the worst expert on technology ever,” she mumbled under her breath.

He shrugged listlessly. “I’ve always had it but…” His face screwed up in thought. “I see…I see myself—no, I _feel_ myself laying on something… I’m lifting my arms up and looking at them and it’s like—it’s like I know that…they’re new? That was the first time I ever saw them—it.”

“Okay, but why still _one_ arm?” she asked impatiently. “It makes no sense.”

He shrugged again.

They suddenly heard voices from outside the cell, sounding far off down the hall: loud, angry, argumentative voices that were carrying closer and closer, accompanied by short, clipped footsteps _and_ the heavy stomps of a guard. It was way too early for their next meal. Sophie’s mouth went dry and she scooted back against the wall, staring at the door in trepidation. Her heart began to pound. Was someone coming for her? Or Winter?

The arguing voices grew clearer and she strained to hear them. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Winter go very still as he listened as well.

“—Director said _no_ —”

“I don’t bloody care what he said! This is the find of the decade!”

“Go ask him, then, I can’t let you in—”

“Stand _down_ , soldier,” the other voice—an English voice—suddenly said angrily. “How do you think the Director would feel about you treating his best scientist like this?”

“I have orders—”

“As do I: the betterment of Hydra. Do you stand against those orders?”

“No!” the guard spluttered. “But you can’t just—!”

“I can and I will. The Director need never know and if he finds out, tell him I held you at gunpoint and forced you to let me see her. I’ll happily take any punishment he doles out to me; it’ll be a small price to pay for examining her.” The voice grew elated. “Can you imagine what’s going on inside her _head_? Inside her _body_? The things she’s rumored to do—what I wouldn’t give to open her up and examine her insides…” His voice filled with longing.

Sophie, on the other hand, filled with terror. This was something straight out of a book. There was a mad scientist on the other side of that door who wanted to dissect her. Her breathing grew shallow with panic and fear and she prayed the guard would remain firm.

“But sir—what about the danger?”

“Really, soldier, don’t be ridiculous,” the scientist snapped. “Have you seen her? The girl doesn’t weigh seven stone soaking wet.”

“Uhhh—stones? She…what?”

“Oh, for god’s sake!” the man shouted angrily. “Idiotic Americans! I come to Brazil and I still can’t seem to be rid of you! It means a hundred pounds! Now, do you _really_ think a small girl like her poses a threat to me, when I have guards around me at all times? Do you _really_ , guard?” His voice dripped with derision and awful scorn. “Because if you feel she poses a threat, I welcome you to lay down your life for me. What an honorable way to go—”

“Fine,” the guard snarled. “Whatever! I don’t care. It’s your head the Director’ll have. Go see it. And watch out; the Soldier is in there.”

“I know,” the scientist said indifferently.

The door slammed open and a man stepped into the room, a large guard with a flushed face angrily hovering near the door. The man was short and skinny with frazzled white hair that stuck out at all ends, crooked glasses on his nose. He wore a baggy brown suit and had a slightly manic expression on his face. He fit the stereotype of “mad scientist” so well that Sophie almost couldn’t believe it.

“Ah,” he said, his eyes finding Sophie and gazing at her in rapture. “It’s _you_.”

She pressed herself closer into the wall, wrapping her arms around her drawn-up knees, glaring at him.

“Such spirit,” he said, seeming moved. “What’s your name? Sophie, correct?” He waited for an answer and continued when she showed no sign of responding. “My name is Dr. Thomas Rorkin. I’ve been wanting to meet you ever since I heard what _might_ be arriving here—but then you vanished! And I thought all hope was lost… But here you are now. Marvelous,” he said in a hushed voice, as if Sophie had just done an amazing back flip. He was scrutinizing her with scientific joy, as if she were some clinical sample or lab experiment. There was nothing in his gaze that suggested he saw her as a human.

He coughed and cleared his throat. “Well. I’d like to chat with you, Sophie. Your mind—it contains a miraculous gift. And how you got it…I’d like to know that as well. I thought I might have a talk with you down here but it’s far too gloomy, and I don’t like _this one_ ”—he hooked a thumb at Winter—“listening in. Empty in the mind, he is, but rather unnerving, don’t you think so?”

Winter, ever well trained, didn’t react. He stared with disinterest at the wall beyond Rorkin but Sophie thought she saw a shadow of something flicker across his face briefly. No one else noticed. The guard at the door had stormed off in a huff (Sophie thought that was pretty negligent for a moment before she realized they must still assume that _Winter_ was their guard; he was still one of them, in their eyes) and Rorkin only had eyes for Sophie.

“Ah. I see. Stubborn girl. Still, I expect I can make you talk.” He sniffed angrily. “They’ve gone about this _entirely_ the wrong way—but what do you expect when working with a bunch of empty-brained brutes? Their first response to everything is violence, rather than reason. Anyone could tell you that keeping you in here is no way to let your skills bloom! But—ah, a discussion for another time.” He backed away to the door and said, “I’ll be sending a guard down soon to retrieve you. I hope you’re in a more talkative mood by then or I’m afraid there _will_ be repercussions. I’m risking quite a lot to privately speak to you, you know.” He gave a strange half-nod and backed out of the cell, slamming the door shut behind him

Sophie listened to his clipped footsteps fade in the distance, the door to the lower level slamming shut, and then she stared at Winter in blind horror, feeling almost paralyzed with panic. He was going to _take_ her somewhere and no one knew about it. Even Pierce wouldn’t know. He’d be able to do whatever he wanted to her—strap her down and poke and prod at her—and ask her any questions he wanted. And if she didn’t speak…what did _repercussions_ mean?

The thought of being strapped down on a gurney made a hysterical scream of panic rise in Sophie’s throat, choking her. The thought of being locked to a chair or some hospital gurney, having her mind and body tampered with it, a white sheet covering her—

_No. No, no, no, NO, I WON’T LET THEM DO IT!_

Her heart racing, she licked her lips and wildly looked around for some kind of escape.

“Sophie,” Winter said in a low voice.

Where could she go? What could she do?

A defense—

She needed something to defend herself with. A knife. A gun. Something. Something she could pull out if things went awry. She thought she could take the scientist. He’d been skinny and weak-looking. She was small herself but unlike the scientist, she was fighting for her life.

She let her head fall forward so a dark curtain of hair swung in front of her face, covering it from the camera’s view on her right. Then she looked up at Winter and mouthed, _“I need a weapon.”_

He stared at her for a long moment. All Sophie could hear was the pounding of her heart. This truly was the make it or break it moment. He could give Sophie a weapon—and then she’d truly know he wasn’t on Hydra’s side anymore. Or he could let Sophie get taken away defenseless or perhaps even snitch on her for wanting a weapon.

His eyes looked pointedly down at his hand. She looked at his hand and saw it drift almost casually, gently, towards his left-side pocket. Then his hand returned to his lap. For a moment, Sophie had no idea what he’d done and stared at him, bewildered. She’d asked for a weapon and what had he done? Moved his hand an inch towards—

Her mouth opened wordlessly when she realized what he had done: shown her where he had a weapon for her. In his left-side pocket, pressed right against his upper thigh. He was clever; if he’d obviously shown her and someone was watching…they’d know for sure he wasn’t on their side anymore—and then how long would it take before they marched down here, dragged him away, and suppressed his memories again?

This way his cover remained. _She’d_ offered to help him but he hadn’t actually taken any actions against Hydra yet. Just said stuff against Hydra—and those words could easily be forgotten with memory suppression.

Now Sophie was faced with a bigger question: how to retrieve the weapon?

It seemed simple at first but the more she thought about it, the more she realized how hard it actually was. He couldn’t just slide it across the floor or toss it to her—someone could see on the camera. She didn’t know if someone was actively watching them or just recording for footage, but she wasn’t taking any chances and neither was he, probably. She could get up and go sit by him and surreptitiously take it from him—but not only had they both maintained a large distance from each other so far, she’d even made him _promise_ to stay away from her. Wouldn’t it look extremely suspicious if she went to him without any obvious reason? She wasn’t sure if she was over-thinking this but she had to think about _his_ safety too. Sure, she could go sit by him and he could allow her too, because they seemed sort of like they were friends now—but that endangered him. He would then be considered a traitor.

However…

A sudden idea struck Sophie and for a moment, she berated herself for considering it. It was crazy, it was daring, and it was pretty obnoxious. She tried to erase it from her mind. _Don’t be stupid, Sophie, you can’t do THAT._ But the more she thought about it…the more she couldn’t help but feel like it really was the best idea—or the best she could come up with right now. It would allow her to get close to him to retrieve the weapon—and the best part was that he wouldn’t really have any choice in the matter. So no one could blame him.

Mind made up, she took a deep breath to calm her nerves and got to her feet. She walked into the middle of the room on shaking legs and tucked her hair behind her ears so that the camera could clearly see her face as well as hear her. Winter stared at her, clearly perplexed, and she took another deep breath.

“There’s something I need to s-say,” she said, trying to control her shaking voice. She already felt a hot flush crawling up her neck at the thought of what she was going to do next but she ignored it. “I’ve tried to hold it back for a long time—but since this is the last time I might see you, I need to tell you.”

He stared at her, still clearly bewildered.

“I love you,” she said.

His eyes widened and he jerked back slightly, his eyebrows drawing together as he stared at her in clear shock.

“I don’t know how,” she said, feeling a bit melodramatic, as if she were in some sort of period drama, “and I don’t know why—because of all the pain you’ve caused me—but somehow… I don’t know.” She shrugged and gave him a trembling smile. To anyone watching, she probably looked nervous because she was so overcome with her love declaration. In reality, she was actually nervous because of how insane this plan was and what his reaction to it would be. “You’ve done some pretty awful things but you’ve also saved my life and—and there’s more to you than meets the eye. You seem like you never notice but you’ve noticed every time I wasn’t eating. You’ve made sure I was safe from anyone else who might want to hurt me. You’ve even listened to me at times. And I guess I fell in love. I’ve never fallen in love before, so I’m not sure, but I _think_ this is what it feels like. Either that or I’m losing my mind.” She laughed shakily.

Winter was staring at her, completely paralyzed at this point, frozen, and she heard the door to the lower level slam open in the distance. The guard was coming for her—she was running out of time.

“So I just wanted to do this,” she whispered.

And then she basically threw herself at him. It was weird and awkward but thankfully he didn’t punch her away from him. That would have been embarrassing _and_ disastrous for her plan. She fell forward onto his lap—they locked eyes for a moment and he looked almost afraid—and then she kissed him.

She was straddling his legs, leaning forward and cupping his face, and she was _kissing him_.

 _Who would have thought I’d do this_? she thought dizzily as she kissed him.

At first he was still and unresponsive, clearly still shocked, and she kissed him more desperately, hoping he would catch on—and then suddenly he did. His hands drifted up, one holding the back of her head, the other holding her waist, and he kissed her back. It was what she’d wanted but she was still so startled that she almost fell off his lap. Despite the fact that his body and demeanor and exterior—everything about him, really—was so hard and prickly, his mouth was surprisingly soft and he was…actually a really good kisser. She felt tingles running up and down her entire body, as if she’d been shocked. She hadn’t expected the Winter Soldier to be a _good_ kisser. Perhaps kissing was like a muscle memory—you never really forgot how to do it, even though it might have been ages since you did it. Like riding a bike.

He was so good that for a moment she forgot what she was supposed to be doing and she melted into him, kissing him back, his facial hair scratching her face slightly—it had been years since she’d kissed anyone and she’d never kissed anyone like _this_ —and then she heard rapidly-approaching footsteps and jolted back into reality. Her hand ran down his side and then casually dipped into his pocket, slipping out a small dagger and dropping it into her sweater’s baggy pocket. Now that the deed was done, she tried to pull away from him but his grip on the back of her head tightened, holding her in place—

The door slammed open and someone said, “What the _hell_?”

Sophie fell off of him, feeling dazed, and a guard marched into the room and yanked her up. He stared incredulously at her and then Winter, looking beyond shocked—and then he burst into loud guffaws. “Well done, Soldier,” he said, giving Winter a smarmy wink. “Didn’t think _you_ cared about this kind of stuff—but hey, if I was locked in here with a dime piece like her, I’d try to get some too.”

 _Ugh._ Sophie internally gagged. 

“Let’s go,” he commanded to Sophie. She surreptitiously felt for the dagger and then gave Winter—who looked shell-shocked—a faint smile before getting dragged out of the room by the guard.

* * *

 

He felt paralyzed to the spot but instead of feeling empty and cold, he felt small sparks flaring up and down his body, making him feel as if he were touching live wires. At first he’d had no idea what she’d been doing when she’d made her grand declarations of love. He still hadn’t caught on when she threw herself into his lap and kissed him.

But then it had suddenly clicked: she wanted to get the dagger without drawing attention to it.

He then kissed her back to maintain her cover. He wished he could have done it in a clinical, practical way. Just a way to maintain her cover, right? Nothing special. Nothing more. 

He would have been lying and he knew it.

He’d never kissed anyone—not that he remembered anyway—and he’d never _wanted_ to. Never really understood why two humans would want to do something so…intimate. Something that left someone weak and exposed, all their vulnerable spots open.

Now he knew why.

His entire body felt like it was on fire. He’d responded as if it was as easy as breathing—and it _had_ been as easy as breathing. As natural. As if he’d done it a hundred times before. Her mouth had been incredibly soft and so had her hair. She still smelled like the remnants of vanilla-scented soap—a leftover from the night she spent in comfort here—and all he could think of was how sweet she smelled and tasted as he kissed her back.

He’d never been touched like this before. He’d never even considered it. It wasn’t for him.

And now she had done it.

He knew she’d done it simply to get the dagger. He wasn’t entertaining silly notions that she was actually in love with him. But kissing her _had_ felt good and he couldn’t help but close his eyes and relive the moment over and over again, lingering on it. He hadn’t experienced anything this nice in…well, ever. His life had never been one of comforts or pleasantries or luxuries of any kind.

She was somehow a kind of luxury for him.

He didn’t know where the thought came from—but once it did, he knew it was true. She was infuriating and she drove him crazy with her endless questions, but she’d somehow found a way to show him the truth of what Hydra had been doing to him (or at least part of the truth). She’d managed to open something inside him, a part of him that was actively questioning everything now. She was…different. She wasn’t weak. She was tougher than any of his other targets and his skin felt a little hot and itchy when he recalled all the times he’d physically hit her. He wouldn’t have chosen to do that now.

He really couldn’t _imagine_ hitting her now, after she’d kissed him like that.

And most of all, he couldn’t stop dwelling on the fact that while she’d kissed him, the sirens and screaming in his head had quieted to a still silence for once in his empty, cold existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello, friends! I’ll keep this brief. Normally when I update after a while, I try to offer some kind of explanation, mostly because I feel bad for keeping you all waiting. However, after some nasty messages I recently received, I’ve decided that I will no longer give explanation if I update after a while. 
> 
> I know most of you are kind, patient people—and this message is not for those of you! This message is for the impatient, unkind, pushy people who feel like they can harass writers for not updating more quickly: please keep in mind that we’re all strangers online. You have no idea what is going on in someone’s life. I could have cancer and be in and out of the hospital. I could be in an abusive relationship and not have much time to write because my partner is monitoring my activities. I could be homeless and bouncing from couch to couch. I could be jobless. I could be dealing with deaths of loved ones. I’m not saying that any of these are true—but I’m also not saying that they’re not true. My life is a mystery to you, just as yours are mysteries to me. I’m not the same girl I was years ago when I started posted. I’m doing my best to update when I can given my life circumstances. And that’s the last I’ll ever speak of this. If you’re okay with waiting for updates—sometimes for longer periods of time, sometimes for shorter (because good times do come along)!—then thank you! If you’re not okay with waiting, then you don’t have to read my stories. No hard feelings.
> 
> With that said, what did you guys think of the chapter? Let me know! I love hearing from you guys! <3


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Black Panther Day! If you have seen the movie, PLEASE be respectful and don't post spoilers in your reviews. But feel free to let me know if you were pleased by the movie! And let me know your thoughts on this chapter. :)

The guard led Sophie up to the third level, looking this way and that, a slightly guilty expression on his face. Sophie decided to try and use that to her advantage. “Please don’t do this,” she said, trying to sound extremely frightened. She was still scared but she felt better now that she had a dagger in her hand—plus she was a little wired after her kiss with Winter.

_Do not think about that right now. It’s irrelevant. It meant nothing._

“Shut up,” the guard said roughly.

_Well, so much for that._

He hauled her to a small corridor that branched off of the main hallways and deposited her in front of a plain white door. He knocked and the door swung open to reveal Rorkin. He looked elated at the sight of Sophie. “Wonderful! Come in,” he said. “You, stay outside,” he said to the guard. The man looked angry and resentful at having to be a part of these shenanigans but he didn’t refuse.

Rorkin pulled Sophie into the room and shut the door behind her. She didn’t miss the fact that he locked it. A thrill of foreboding ran down her spine and she resisted the urge to finger the dagger.

“Take a seat.” Rorkin gestured to one of the chairs in the room, which held a large oak desk, a computer, and many bookshelves stuffed haphazardly with thick binders and heavy-looking books. Crooked doctorates hung on the wall and a low-slung, worn-out sofa sat in one corner. A plant wilted on the desk.

The sight of the computer had sent a frisson down Sophie’s spine but she studiously kept her gaze away from it. She didn’t want Rorkin to guess a single thing she was planning. She sat down in a squishy armchair and was horrified when he sat down in an armchair nearby and dragged it over so he was sitting across from her, his knees almost touching hers. She shrank away from him, pressing her back firmly against the back of the armchair.

“So,” he said, looking over her with greedy, beady little eyes. Sophie realized that, despite his white hair, he wasn’t actually that old. Possibly in his forties or fifties. Maybe he dyed it? Or it had gone prematurely white. “How are you?”

Sophie clamped her mouth firmly shut and glared stubbornly at him.

Rorkin sighed. “Sophie…you’ll need to talk. Otherwise there will be repercussions—I told you this. Please don’t do this. We can be _allies_. No one here has treated you well. I can treat you well. We can be partners in this, you, me…and your beautiful, clever mind.”

Sophie gagged on the inside. The way he said that was not a compliment—it was creepy. Still, a frantic gleam had lit his eyes and she worried that he might do something crazy if she didn’t speak. “What do you want?” she asked roughly.

He clapped once like an overexcited child. “Excellent! I’m glad you asked. All I want is to study you. Test your limits. Run scans on you. Figure out what makes you _tick_.” He listed all these things off as if they were fun activities she should be thrilled for.

“What makes me tick is staying away from creeps like you,” she said politely.

He looked startled for a moment and then his face went slack. An angry look came into his eyes. He didn’t have Pierce’s calm. “ _Creeps_ like me? No, no, Sophie, you’ve got it all wrong. I want you to realize your full potential!”

“What potential?” she snapped.

He leaned forward and she leaned back, scooting her chair away from him. His eyes had a crazed look to them and he said, “Your _mind_. If what they told me is right—are you aware of what you’re capable of? You can override security measures to obtain launch codes. You can figure out the bank details of the richest men and women on Earth. You can uncover detailed security plans for any building on Earth. You could be the most powerful person on the planet—if you utilized your powers well. You could bring down governments, steal state secrets, steal scientific data… The possibilities are endless! And I want to see how you do it. I want to see how you use them.”

Sophie felt sick when she saw the fanatical gleam lighting up his face. He was talking about doing all of these things as if they were good things. This had been her worst nightmare her whole life: someone finding about her skills and wanting to use her this way. This was why she’d never revealed them. She wasn’t like the Avengers. Her talents made her incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands—and most people were the wrong hands. Who wouldn’t be, when they had essentially the world’s best hacker at their service?

“Who _are_ you?” she asked, revolted. “What is wrong with you? Why would I want to do any of that?!”

“I told you, my name is Dr. Thomas Rorkin,” he said. “I’m a scientist and I specialize in computer science and neuroscience. I’m the one who encrypts all of Hydra’s most important data,” he said smugly. “I’m the one who holds the very files that keep this group alive and well.”

It suddenly struck Sophie that Rorkin was either exceedingly stupid—or astonishingly arrogant. He was telling _her_ , the girl who could absorb information from technology, that he held Hydra’s most important files. Either he hadn’t realized she could be capable of being a threat or he really _didn’t_ think she could ever be a worthy threat.

_I'll show him._

“And what are you planning to do with me?” she asked rudely. “Sounds like you’re a scientist, not a neurosurgeon. How are you planning on seeing inside my mind?”

“Trust me, there are ways,” he said smoothly. “Scans, tests, trial runs… I can also take samples of your brain tissue and—”

“Hold up, wait!” Sophie shouted, horrified. “Take samples of my _brain_ tissue? How the hell are you going to do that? You’re not a surgeon!”

“No, but I have surgeons at my disposal. Don’t worry,” he said in what probably seemed like a soothing tone to him but sounded weak to Sophie. “There’s minimal risk. Our surgeons are top-notch and all it takes is opening one small section of the skull, taking the sample, and suturing the skull back on. Back of the head, under the hair, no one will even see it—”

“That’s the _least_ of my worries!” she cried, feeling the urge to throw up. Her hands felt slick with sweat and she wanted out of this room right now—but she couldn’t leave without finding out information on Winter first. She owed it to him, after using him so badly before she left. “You are _not_ going to open up my skull and take some of my _brain_!” She held back a wave of nausea, slamming a closed fist against her mouth to quell the shrieks building up in her chest.

“I assure you, Sophie, it’s mostly safe!” he protested.

“Mostly?” she asked cuttingly. “What does that mean? Has—” A sudden, horrific thought hit her. “Have _other people_ gone through this?” she asked, her eyes growing wide and white. Her left hand clenched the armchair arm with white knuckles and her right hand drifted to the pocket of her sweater, resting just outside the opening, fingers curling up into a fist. When Rorkin hesitated, she said, “Tell me!” in ringing tones.

“There have been…other test subjects,” he admitted grudgingly. “People with other powers, other talents—nothing as powerful as you, however,” he added quickly, as if this would appease her. “Some of them—I admit, we pushed some of them too far and they…”

“And they?” Sophie pressed with a sense of dawning horror.

“And some of them did experience…brain damage,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Fabulous,” Sophie said faintly. “Who _wouldn’t_ agree to testing that might leave you brain damaged?” She gave a hysterical-sounding laugh as her mind raced to figure out what to do next. She needed to get her hands on his industrial-grade, important-looking computer system. If he had access to all of Hydra’s mainframes and important files… She could get in through his computer.

“But it’ll be different with you!” he said eagerly, his eyes shining with all the possibilities over cutting her head open. “I know better—I know how far to push people—and your capabilities are so much more complex than any other person we’ve ever had. I’ll be extra careful with you.”

He was leaning uncomfortably close and she scooted her chair back a little more, heart pounding. “No thank you,” she said hoarsely.

“Sophie, think of the possibilities—”

“ _No_ ,” she said forcefully, feeling panic fluttering in her chest. Her hand slipped into her pocket and gripped her dagger in a sweaty grip.

“Sophie—” And then Rorkin made the mistake of leaning too far forward and trying to—what? What had he planned on doing? His hands were outstretched, his fingers curved, as if he planned on grabbing her head. She had no idea what he’d planned but she knew in a heartbeat that she _didn’t want it_. Her panic overtook her completely and she yanked the dagger out and thrust it blindly in his direction.

“Oh—” He let out a strange, wheezy gasp and looked down at his stomach with wide eyes. Sophie slowly looked down with wide, horrified eyes and gasped when she realized that her dagger was buried in his stomach, her hand still gripping the handle. Blood was beginning to slowly seep across his white button-down shirt. He looked back up at her almost wonderingly, as if he couldn’t believe what she’d done (neither could she, really), and then he whispered, “You little—”

Sophie desperately lunged for his desk, grabbing his potted plant, and swung around, smashing the pot directly onto his head. It shattered but the sound was muffled by the carpet below, dirt and withered leaves falling everywhere. Rorkin's mouth opened for a minute, a glazed look in his eyes and her dagger still stuck in his stomach, and then he slumped over in his chair, the dark red stain on his shirt getting larger every second. A thin trickle of blood dripped down his forehead.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, wringing her hands, which were flecked with his blood. “Oh my god— _oh my god_ —” What had she done? Had she just murdered someone? Not that he didn’t deserve death but the thought of killing someone made her sick. She dropped to her knees by him with a low thud, her breath coming out in panicked, fluttery sounds, and pressed her fingers to his neck. A wave of relief swept through her when she realized he still had a heartbeat and was still alive—but for how long?

This hadn’t been how she’d planned it but she had work to do and now was her best chance. She took a deep breath to settle her nerves, threw her shoulders back, and hurried around to the desk. She sat cross-legged in front of the computer, took another deep breath, and closed her eyes. Then she placed her hands on the warm, humming computer and focused.

For a moment, nothing happened and she worried that she’d forgotten how to do it—

But then she burst through the door and it was as easy as _breathing_ , it was so natural, so normal, she was built for this, she was made for this… She felt her shoulders relax as she vanished from this world and entered the computer. She burst through the dark vortex and felt things snapping, sparkling, hissing, and clicking all around her. She shifted and focused her energy, running down endless file cabinets and gleaming boxes stretching into the black infinity, searching, searching for the one she wanted—

Suddenly she knew which way to go. She ran, the dark surface beneath her like a mirror, reflecting the dark sky and sides, which in turn reflected each other, turning the entire universe into a glittering vortex of endless cabinets and criss-crossing, zooming wires and lights, snapping, popping, blinking lights—

Suddenly she could feel herself taking it all in. She was pulling information in, as hard and fast as she could, tiny little _clink, clink, clink_ noises in her head as new information fell neatly into patiently waiting slots like compact coins. She was here but she was there. She could feel her body and mind and she was standing still inside the mind of the computer, yet she was also running at the speed of light, leaping over glowing wires, ripping open a few specific drawers and shuddering as she felt electricity flow in and out of her a crackling river, her veins lighting up like a glow-in-the-dark map. So much beautiful information. So many new words and pictures to sort and slot into her personal memory card, deleting the files she didn’t need, downloading everything she could, taking it all in—

And then it was over. It had happened in a matter of seconds. She pulled back out of the computer and back into reality, shuddering as the spell broke and she came off of her electrical high. The room seemed deathly silent and pale after the computer and her heart was pounding so loud that she couldn’t hear anything over it. She felt like her entire body was glowing and humming; she hadn't experienced her technology high in ages.

She didn’t care—her mind was swimming with new information and she was furiously racing to piece it all together. She knew. She _knew_. She finally, finally knew what had happened to Winter—who he was—and she knew who she needed to contact now—she knew what would happen if she didn’t—

Everyone was in danger and she needed to contact him. He was their only hope now.

She crawled around the desk to where Rorkin lay, feebly stirring. She had to make it seem like no time had passed, like she hadn’t done anything since she’d stabbed him. She grabbed the dagger and pushed it deeper into his stomach, ignoring the squelching sound and fresh wave of blood that seeped up and covered her fingertips. Then she opened her mouth and began screaming at the top of her lungs.

It took ten seconds for the guard outside to kick the door down and assess the situation. It took another fifteen seconds for him to yell for backup, for medical personnel, and to grab Sophie’s arm violently, dragging her up and shaking her till her teeth rattled and yelling, “WHAT DID YOU DO? WHAT DID YOU DO?”

Sophie thought it was fairly obvious what she had done but she had a feeling he was asking _why_ she did it instead. So she burst into tears to avoid answering the question. He responded by slapping her squarely across the face, so hard that she slammed into the wall. He didn’t even give her time to fall over. He grabbed her arm and yanked her from the room so roughly that her other shoulder slammed into the door frame. She let out a wail of pain and he shook her so hard she thought her neck might snap. She was aware that the hallway was filled with a crowd of people, most watching Rorkin being lifted onto a stretcher but quite a few watching her with the guard. “Shut _up_ ,” he hissed, his face screwed up with fury, almost shaking with anger.

He dragged Sophie all the way back down to the lower level and the cell, unlocking the door and throwing Sophie in so hard she flew back a few feet and hit the ground on her back. She lay there, gasping, but before she could regain her breath, the guard had stormed in and yanked her to her feet. She staggered, her bloody fingers brushing against his chest, and he shoved her away from him.

“SOLDIER!” he barked, his expression livid. “Up! Right now!”

Sophie turned to see Winter getting to his feet, a wary expression on his face. “What?” he asked.

“You’re going to teach your little girlfriend a lesson,” the guard seethed. “This little— _bitch_ —decided to make a move, and stabbed Rorkin in the stomach and knocked him out! And the bitch wasn’t even supposed to technically _be_ there—do you know what will happen to me if Rorkin dies?” the guard suddenly screamed. His voice was shaking in what Sophie had originally assumed was anger but now saw was fear. “If Rorkin dies—if the Director finds out I let his prized scientist _die_ —” He broke off, breathing heavily. “Beat her. Now.”

Winter stared at him through hooded eyes, face expressionless.

“Well?” the guard snarled. “What did I say? I want to see you teach her a lesson _right now_. I’d do it myself but you’ll do a better job.” He licked his lips and waited with nasty pleasure, eyes darting between the both of them. Sophie and Winter both stood frozen, her staring at him and him staring at the guard.

“What is this?” the guard asked slowly, quietly. “Are you actually _refusing_ one of my orders, Soldier? Do I need to remind you who comes higher on the chain of command? Or do you—” His eyes darted to Sophie and a look of confusion crossed his face. “Do you actually _like_ her?”

“No,” Winter finally said. “I was thinking of the best way to teach her a lesson.”

“Good,” the guard snapped, giving Sophie a terrifying smile. “Then do it. I want to see her bleed.” He slammed the door of the cell shut and then leaned against it, folding his arms expectantly. Winter positioned himself so that he was directly in front of Sophie, his back to the guard, blocking her from his view. He looked at her and mouthed, “Act like it hurts.” Before Sophie could think, _What_? he had punched her in the stomach.

And it _did_ hurt.

She knew, deep down, that he wasn’t using his full strength. If he had, he would probably have been able to rip her head off. She also noticed that he was strategically avoiding her face or ribs—or breaking any major bones, really. But she didn’t have to _act_ like it hurt because his blows really did…well, hurt. Not as much as they had before, when he’d actually intended to hurt her, but still.

He grabbed her arm, twisted it, and forced her to the ground, grabbing the hair and wrenching her head back. She let out a yell, her face screwed up with pain, and desperately tried to use her left arm to scrabble behind her to hit him. She knew that _technically_ she shouldn’t have been hitting him, because he didn’t choose—or want—to do this… But it probably would have looked suspicious if she didn’t even try to fight back—and besides, her instinct to defend herself was growing stronger. She wasn’t the same girl who let him drag her limp body down a hall crying and screaming.

He kicked her squarely in her back, avoiding her spine, and she flew forward and hit the floor, biting her lip and drawing blood. She flipped over, scrambling backwards on all fours, trying to regain her balance. He grabbed her by the front of her collar and lifted her in the air so high that her feet dangled a foot off the ground. She flailed, grabbing for her collar (which was sort of choking her), spluttering, and he slammed her into the wall so hard that stars exploded in front of her eyes and she couldn’t help but wail.

And on and on and on it went. It must have been around ten or fifteen straight minutes but Sophie couldn’t keep track of the time because she was too busy pretending to be in more pain than she was and lost in the frantic thoughts in her mind. She needed to tell Winter what she’d found out but he had to stop _beating_ her first. After what seemed like ages, he stopped and stepped back. She slumped against the wall, clutching her head in her hands, tears of pain and anger burning in her eyes. Being beat up and pretending to have it hurt more than it did while the guard watched…the humiliation of it burned her.

“Keep going,” the guard snapped. “I don’t recall telling you to stop.”

“Enough,” Winter said.

“I said—”

“ _Enough_ ,” Winter snarled. “The Director wants her _alive_. Do you want to answer to him if she dies or sustains permanent brain damage?”

The guard spat at his feet but then shrugged and smiled nastily at Sophie. “Well…good enough. For now.” He turned and left, slamming and locking the door after him.

There was a ringing silence after he was gone. Sophie wiped away her tears and looked up to see Winter retreating back to his wall, his expression a bit strange. He looked pale but grim. He kept his eyes locked on her but didn’t ask if she was okay. _Such a weird guy._ Sophie’s heart flooded when she remembered all she had learned.

She crawled over to him and he flinched away from her, as if he expected her to hit him for what he’d done. She sat next to him, a few inches away, cross-legged. “It’s okay,” she said, reaching out to pat his knee—and then thinking better of it and withdrawing her hand. She’d already touched him without his permission once today (her cheeks burned at the thought and then her cheeks burned even more when she realized she’d _enjoyed_ it; God, she was a monster) and she knew how he was about people touching him. “I know you didn’t…have a choice.”

“Are you…” he hesitated.

“I’m fine.” She tried to smile widely and then winced when her lip split. Her body ached and throbbed at certain parts but it felt mostly like a hardcore workout—or what Sophie imagined a hardcore workout would feel like. With perhaps a little more pain added. Or a lot. “I’ll be fine,” she amended. “It’s nothing horrible.”

“Ah,” he said faintly. He stared away from her, focusing on the wall opposite them where Sophie had previously sat. “That’s…” His voice trailed off as if he wasn’t sure what to say. They sat in silence for a while and then he said, “So. Stabbed him and knocked him out?”

Sophie smiled grimly to herself. “Yes.” She knew she probably should have felt bad over what she’d done—and a part of her really did feel ill and hope that Rorkin didn’t die—but she couldn’t also help but feel a bit satisfied. He was a monster and he really did deserve it—and who’d have thought that she, Sophie Duran, could have been capable of that?! She, the same girl who used to be afraid of driving cars and owning a DVD player!

Actually, the thought of driving cars still made her a bit nervous but she wasn’t going to dwell on that right now.

“Good job,” he said. His tone had a faint note of admiration to it, as if he couldn’t believe it either. 

Something had just occurred to Sophie, thinking about their kiss; she’d done it to protect Winter and herself, in case anyone had been watching them…but they’d already done quite a bit of talking before that which could be probably be called treason. “I have a question,” she said quietly. “All those things we said yesterday—all that stuff you said about wanting to know more about yourself—and about not wanting to get…wiped again. Wasn’t saying all of that dangerous?”

“Yes,” he said flatly. “They could have been watching.”

She raised an eyebrow and then winced at a sharp pain at her temple. She raised her hand and felt a thin scratch there. “And you said it all anyway?”

“I suspected they weren’t—aren’t—watching,” he said, still looking away from her. “I suspected they weren’t at first because…” He shrugged. “I’m the asset. I get the job done. They trust me to do my job. Why would someone watch us if _I’m_ in here with you? Then, after I said all those things, and no one came down to collect me and take me to the chair”—he grimaced—“I knew for sure they weren’t watching.”

“Then what’s with the camera?” she demanded.

He shrugged again. “Recording. To watch later—or as records. Who knows. Or maybe there’s a chance someone _is_ watching—a small chance.”

“You—you should have told me this before!” Sophie spluttered, feeling indignation and embarrassment rise up inside of her. “I could have—I didn’t have to kiss you then! I did all that because I was afraid someone might be watching us!”

He shrugged for a third time and Sophie felt like grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. He’d made such strides the day before, admitting to the memories he was experiencing, admitting some of his anger and frustration and fear, opening up to her…what the hell was wrong with him now? Why had he withdrawn back into his shell? He looked flat, colorless, empty. There was nothing on his face and nothing in his eyes.

 _This couldn’t have anything to do with him beating me up, could it_? Sophie wondered in shock. Shocked because he’d hurt her so many times before and he’d had no real choice this time—so if he really _was_ blaming himself for what had just happened…

It meant he was feeling guilt.

And if he was feeling guilt…

It meant he was _feeling things on the inside._

He was seeing her as more than just an object or a mission or a target.

And he was more than the Winter Soldier. She knew that for sure now.

“Winter,” she whispered, willing him to look at her. He didn’t. “Please look at me. I have something very important to tell you.” She subtly shifted so that her back faced the camera and her hair swung to cover her sideways profile. He kept staring at the wall opposite them. Sophie didn’t really know how to start so she decided to just jump in; she’d never had to deal with anything like this before.

“Winter, I know who you are,” she whispered.

He seemed to go even more still than he already was.

“I know your name and where you came from,” she said even more quietly now. She could barely hear her own whispers but she knew he could hear her. “And I know a lot more than that. I know something bad that Hydra’s planning to do soon—and I know who to contact to help stop them…and help _you_.”

He slowly looked up at her now, his mouth slightly open in confusion.

Her eyes blurred with tears against her will when she thought about the pieces of the puzzle in her mind, the way they were connecting. Some pieces were still missing but she knew so much now—and it hurt her. She _knew_ she’d been right when she’d began to suspect that something horrible had been done to him. “Y-Your name…” She took a deep breath and gave him a watery smile, tears spilling over onto her cheeks. “Your name was—is—James Barnes. You were born on March 10th, 1917. You were born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. You joined the 107th Infantry to fight in World War II. You were captured once by Hydra and declared missing-in-action but your best friend rescued you and your guys. But then you…I don’t know, I guess you got recaptured again. Everyone back in America thought you died. But Hydra got you and they kept you. When they brought you in, you’d just lost your arm—some accident. It didn’t say how; just that you were found bleeding in the snow, almost frozen to death.”

She took a deep breath. “And they decided to use you. Your best friend…your best friend was Steve Rogers.” Tears were flowing down her face now when she thought about the shock of the entire story. Winter had not only been a noble guy who’d gone to fight in war—his best friend had been _the_ Steve Rogers. And everyone knew _his_ story. Sophie had just never paid attention to any of the other names in his story. She was still in shock that she was sitting next to the man who’d been best friends with one of the most revered superheroes in American history—and present. “Also known as…Captain America. The guy they found frozen a few years ago—except he’s still alive and kicking and he’s an Avenger now. And”—she sniffed and tried to wipe her tears away—“Hydra decided to use you because of your connection to Steve Rogers—they thought it would be fitting—and basically…they basically gave you the metal arm you have now. They call it a cybernetic arm. And they injected you with their own form of a super-soldier serum. And they…”

Her tears began to flow again and she was crying so hard she could barely whisper the words. The images and tests and trials kept swimming in her head and his oblivious, clueless expression didn’t help; he didn’t even _remember_ some of what they’d done to him. Did she have the right to destroy his mind even further by telling him? Or did he deserve the absolute truth now, being essentially the world’s longest-suffering prisoner of war?

“They did so many things to you,” she whispered. “So many t-tests and—and so much work into your mind… They kept suppressing your m-memories again and again and talking about conditioning you and erasing your personality… All the nightmares you seemed to have and the things you said in your sleep that they conditioned you to forget…”

His face was as white as a sheet but his eyes were half-lidded, almost as if he were in shock but also exhausted at the same time. It occurred to Sophie that he’d learned so much about himself in the past twenty-hours—more than he’d ever learned in decades.

“Why are you crying?” he asked hoarsely, finally speaking.

Sophie couldn’t tell him she was crying for the boy he’d once been and the man he might have turned out to be if he’d gotten the chance to live. Hydra didn’t have many files or notes on who James Barnes had really _been_ before they took him but they had compiled a detailed file on his factual history throughout his entire life—places he’d worked, the names of people he knew, the schools he’d gone to—to erase those key words from his mind, probably… And they also had noted aspects of his personality, some deemed worthy enough to enhance and some deemed as threats that needed to be destroyed: _loyal to a fault, stubborn, silent (work on this!), good focus, not squeamish, displays tendencies of friendliness (get. rid. of.)…_

She wept for the innocent life that had been taken by them. Something about it seemed so much worse than criminal, so much worse than what had been done to her, because he was still so in the dark. It was horrible; it was like a child who didn’t understand they had been abused, or a homeless person who didn’t understand that they _deserved better._ He was dark and dangerous and smart as a whip, no doubt, but there was a terrible innocence to him that was destroying Sophie’s heart. She wished she could go back in time and protect 28-year-old James Barnes before he’d been captured by Hydra.

Her mind spun with the files and faded handwritten documents and fuzzy footage of a blurry figure being physically trained and tested, and she had to press her hands against her eyes to fight off a wave of nausea. She hadn’t downloaded information into her mind in a long time and she’d never downloaded _so much_ before. The high was fading and the headache was coming. Her horribly-aching mind was frantically racing to sort everything into neat piles, deleting the little things she didn’t neat, organizing, storing, dragging important bits and pieces to the forefront…

Like Project Insight.

Sophie had downloaded all tentative projects of Hydra’s from the past five years and her mind had immediately locked onto the one that had the most recent dates. Normally, it would have taken Sophie _hours_ to read and understand the files and papers, had she had to do it the normal human way by reading and reviewing…but when it came to Sophie’s mind, things worked at hyper-speed. Most people’s minds did. Sophie had once read a theory in a book that humans only used a small percentage of their brain capacity and she believed it—or she did about herself anyway. When she was downloading, her synapses were firing simultaneously, her mind lighting up like fireworks, locking things into place, decoding, deleting, organizing, prioritizing…

And she understood the gist of Project Insight: some kind of enormous weapon was to be unveiled in a short amount of time this very spring and it would be able to take out millions of people all around the world at once. Anyone Hydra deemed a threat—and this seemed to be anyone valuable, smart, talented, powerful, or skilled who didn’t seem likely to agree with them—would be killed in an instant. The entire list of name scrolled down in Sophie’s head at warp speed and she had to control herself as her mind blinked in on several notable names at they sped by: politicians, activists, brilliant scientists, top physicians and surgeons, writers, artists, superheroes… There was no end to the names.

The one thing Sophie didn’t have was the _where_ and _how_ and a specific _when_. Her mind had frantically raced around searching for the information but nothing fit the keywords. Either she’d missed it and the information had been deeper in the files—perhaps in files ten, fifteen, twenty years old—or Hydra had been extremely careful to never note down these things…even in their own files. Perhaps they’d been paranoid of their files being breached or stolen. Good for them but horribly unfortunate for Sophie, who ached to know these vital aspects of their plan.

There were other plans and programs and secrets of Hydra’s swirling around in her mind now but she’d have to think about those later. Right now, her head was _pounding_ and Winter and Project Insight were the only pressing things on her mind.

“No reason,” she finally sniffed, wiping away her tears. “There’s something else, too…” Quietly, haltingly, she explained Project Insight in the best way that she could. She expected his expression to grow horror-struck the more she explained it but it didn’t; it remained impassive throughout her whole explanation and her unease grew the whole time. “Well?” she quietly demanded at the end.

"Not our problem,” he finally said, sounding almost bored.

“Not— Yes, it is!” Sophie spluttered.

“Not our problem,” he repeated firmly.

“It—it _is_ our problem!” she hissed, feeling horrified. “All those innocent people!”

He shrugged. “Nothing we can do.”

She was so angry she smacked his arm as hard as she could. He didn’t even wince and she yanked her stinging hand away, biting back swear words. She’d forgotten she was hitting the metal—cybernetic—arm and it hurt like hell. “Listen,” she said in a low voice. “You might not think it’s our problem—but it is. I _know_ about the project now; you think I can sit around and let millions of people die? No. No way.”

“So what do you propose we do?” he asked mockingly.

“Contact Captain America,” she said calmly. The answer had presented itself to her almost instantaneously after she’d downloaded the information: Captain America. _He_ was the solution to all of their problems. Not only was he the childhood best friend of Winter…James…but he was probably one of the only people in the world who could figure out a way to stop Project Insight. If he wanted to invite his Avenger pals to help, Sophie wouldn’t stop him.

He scowled at her but didn’t say anything, possibly because he had nothing to say. She glared back at him and they stared at each other for a very long moment before he looked away first— _Ha_!—and mumbled, “I can’t believe…my name is _James_ …” He pressed his fingers to his temple as if he really could not believe it.

“Shhh!” Sophie shushed. “Don’t say it out loud anymore! What if they hear you? If they figure out I know all that stuff about you, they’ll suppress _my_ memories!”

He nodded once but Sophie could still see the confusion and longing haunting his eyes; he’d just had a huge load of information dumped on him…but it still wasn’t _enough_. He wanted to know more. She didn’t blame him; she wanted to know more too. She wanted to know about who James Barnes had been. And finding Captain America would help with that.

Sophie leaned forward and said, “Winter…getting me to Hydra was your first mission.”

He looked up at her, eyes narrowed.

“Now _we_ have a new mission,” she said, emphasizing that they were together in this now. “Get the hell out of here and find Captain America.”

 


End file.
